


Orange is the New Sequins

by nanasse



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prison, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Lesbian Sex, Lesbians, Pining, Slurs, biological women, cis women, many lesbians
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-05 00:47:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14605533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanasse/pseuds/nanasse
Summary: Trixie Mattel was a good girl. She called her mom once a week. She graduated with honors. She had a fiancé and was going to have 2.5 kids, a house in the suburbs, and a dog. And one time, in college, she carried a purse full of drug money, and now she was in Tuckahoe Penitentiary, where she definitely didn't belong.orthis is orange is the new black but like a poorly written screenplay of it with Trixie as our Piper and rugirls as all the other inmates





	1. Trixie Wasn't Ready

**Author's Note:**

> hi! this has probably been done before on here, but better, but I haven't seen it yet so I wrote my own. please direct me to the prison AU fic on here if you have seen it already because I'm not trying to be a copying slut, even though this is a literal adaptation of orange is the new black.
> 
> I have read just about every rpdr high school/boarding school AU because I love women. lots of women, together, in confined spaces. and as I was watching oitnb, I was like, hey, I can put my favorite women in prison! so this was born.
> 
> it'll probably never be finished, fair warning, bc I have this fun tradition of starting stuff and not finishing it, but I told myself that I was not allowed to rewatch oitnb if I didn't write this fic side by side with it.
> 
> I've taken some liberties of my own that weren't on the show, such as having Alex and Piper not know each other beforehand, bc I'm a huge sucker for that friends to lovers piney shit.
> 
> anyway! I will always love comments + please bug the shit out of me if I am inactive for too long, thanks (:

“Oh my God. Oh my God, Ken. Is that barbed wire?” Trixie peered out the windshield as her fiancé pulled into a parking space.

“It’s a prison, babe. I don’t know what you expected. It’s to keep people from climbing over the fences and escaping.”

“I know but, like…it seems so real now.” Trixie reached across the seat to grab her fiancé’s hand.

Ten years ago, Trixie had been receiving in-state tuition at a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin when her friend Pearl had decided she was going to make some extra cash by selling club drugs to college kids. Trixie had carried a purse of money for her once. ONCE. One time. Une fois. And a couple months ago, the drug ring had fallen apart, some bitch had thrown Trixie’s name into the ring even though she had only touched drug money ONCE, and now she found herself here, staring up at the outside of Tuckahoe Penitentiary.

“Oh my God,” Trixie repeated, her eyes filling up with tears. She looked over at her fiancé, Ken, who frowned when he saw her tears threatening to spill over.

“Hey,” he offered kindly.

He had been so good to her when he had found out what Trixie had done. He had held her tightly as Trixie sobbed into the paper that mandated a year of prison service for drug-related crimes.

“You should just break up with me,” Trixie had sobbed, her winged eyeliner running down her face in ugly black tracks. She was crying- rather, she was bawling, which she tried to avoid doing in front of Ken as it made her look really ugly. “You didn’t sign up for this.”

Ken sighed into her hair.

“Granted, I didn’t. It could be a lot worse, though. You could be going to jail for years for running across Europe selling meth with a lesbian lover. You’ll get through this. We’ll get through this. Together.”

As they sat outside the prison, Ken ran his thumb over the back of Trixie’s hand, bumping her engagement ring. The proposal had come soon after Trixie had set her prison date for self-surrender. Ken had taken her to the lake. Trixie always loved the lake just outside of their town because it reminded her of the scenery around where she grew up. She hadn’t been blessed with a lake house financed by rich parents, but she would run up and down the dock with her siblings and skip rocks across the water.

When Ken took her down a few weeks back, he had brought a blanket so they could sit by the water. Trixie had quickly stripped off her pink, floaty sundress and waded into the water, turning around to beam at Ken.

“Uh… Trixie,” Ken had said, fishing around in his pockets, “Could you wait a moment?”

“C’mon hon! Hurry up!” Trixie had called, splashing water in his direction.

“No, babe, seriously. Please, just wait a second. Come here.”

Trixie trudged back onto the shore, an eyebrow raised. Lake water dripped off her pink bathing suit onto the blanket.

“What, do you have a boner or something? The cold water will-“ She was interrupted by Ken getting down on one knee.

“Oh my God. Oh my God.”

“Beatrice Mattel-“

“Oh my God!”

“You are the most beautiful and amazing woman I have ever met,” Ken said, gazing up at Trixie and holding a small ring box in front of him. Trixie had her hands over her mouth, staring at him with wide, glossy eyes.

“And I want to spend the rest of my life with you, no matter what we have to go through. I know you’re the one for me, Trixie.”

Trixie’s voice was muffled through her hands.

“But in a couple weeks I’m going to-“

“I don’t care that you’re going to prison. I love you. I can wait.” Ken opened the box. “So, Trixie, will you marry me?”

Trixie sank down next to him on the blanket, nodding slowly. She didn’t trust herself to speak, feeling a lump rising in her throat. She had always been overly emotional.

She wiped away her tears before extending her hand, watching as Ken slipped the ring on her ring finger.

“It’s beautiful,” Trixie whispered. She didn’t go back in the water after that, choosing instead to sit on the shore and admire her ring.

Trixie was proud of it. She was _so_ proud to be someone’s fiancé, especially when that man was as amazing as Ken was. She took the ring off morosely, hesitating as Ken held out his hand to take it from her.

“Where are you going to keep this until I get out?” Trixie asked. “You can’t put it in your pocket, it’ll get lost.”

Ken reached in his pocket for his wallet, unzipping it. “Here.” Trixie dropped it in sadly, staring down into the wallet until Ken closed it up and put it back in his pocket. Trixie sighed and looked out the passenger side window.

“Ready?” Ken asked.

“No,” she grumbled, opening the door anyway. Ken grabbed her arm, pulling her back to kiss her once more, softly, before exiting the car as well.

Trixie frowned up at the grimy, stale prison exterior as she headed towards the building. The interior didn’t fare much better. The floor looked like it hadn’t been washed in a few decades, and a metal detector framed by a metal fence loomed at her ominously. She gulped as she walked over to the guard window, her pink kitten heels clacking loudly on the floor.

“Um, hi,” Trixie said. “I’m supposed to surrender today? My name is Trixie Mattel.”

“Oh, a self-surrender, huh?” The woman at the desk didn’t look up for several moments, but her eyes widened when they were finally laid on Trixie. “Honey? You sure about that?”

“Yeah, Trixie Mattel. They told me to come today.”

“You don’t look fit for prison, but...” the guard mumbled as she pulled out a clipboard. Trixie shot a bewildered look back at her fiancé, who raised his eyebrows at her.

“You said Tracy Martel…?”

“Trixie. Trixie Mattel.”

“Oh, yep, here you are. Hey, Jackson!”

Another correctional officer poked her head out of the metal detector.

“What?!”

“Get this one through processing,” the first guard said, going back to the magazine she had been reading before Trixie walked up.

“Oh my God,” Trixie said, grabbing Ken’s arm instinctively. “Honey, this is it.”

“Babe, I love you so much,” Ken said, cupping Trixie’s face and kissing her again. She threw her arms around his neck, pulling him close and kissing him like her life depended on it.

“Awww, how cute!” the second CO chirped. “Break it up soon, kids. Martel has to go through processing now.” Trixie pulled back, sighing and not letting go of Ken.

“It’s Mattel. But it’s going to be Carson soon. Trixie Carson.” Trixie looked at Ken, offering him a small smile.

“I don’t really care,” the CO said. “Through the metal detector, dolly.”

“I love you,” Trixie whispered, kissing him once more. She then felt the officer tug on her arm, causing her to stumble off balance. She watched Ken wipe his eyes before nodding quickly and heading to the door.

“Please call!” Trixie quickly added. “I love you so much.” Ken nodded again, mouthing ‘I love you’ back at Trixie. Then he walked out the door and was gone.

The half hour that followed was the worst half hour of Trixie’s life. After obtaining a scratchy set of temporary clothes, the CO stripped her down and checked — of all places! — her asshole for drugs. As if Trixie Mattel was going to bring drugs into this prison in her butt. Ridiculous. She thought it was an awful way to get inmates acclimated to prison.

“All right,” the CO said when Trixie had put on her uniform and collected all of her new, colorless prison items, “into the van.”

She was thrown into the middle of the van, right next to another inmate, who had some of the longest legs Trixie had ever seen. The girl scowled at her and Trixie quickly looked down at her uncomfortable pillow.

“Is that all of them?” A girl inquired in the front seat. She was staring down into a magazine.

“One more,” the CO said before disappearing back into the building.

Trixie fiddled with the zipper on her jacket for a couple minutes, trying to zip it up before she realized it was broken. She huffed and looked out the window on her side of the van. In the front seat, the girl’s arched eyebrows peered at her in the rearview mirror.

“Is something wrong, princess?” Trixie’s eyes quickly shot to the front seat, making eye contact with the girl. Oh God, she was already starting off on the wrong foot. Both people in this van hated her.

“Oh, no. It’s just… my zipper’s broken.” Trixie shot the girl an apologetic smile, which she didn’t seem to appreciate too much.

“Is this your first time in prison?” She asked, turning around to look at Trixie fully. She was actually quite beautiful — her eyebrows curved in just the right way to frame her face, and she had a beauty mark a little bit above her lips, which had been filled in with red lipstick. She reminded Trixie of 30’s glamour.

“Yeah, it is, actually,” Trixie admitted, seeing the girl’s expression soften a little. “Is it that obvious?”

“Girl, you stick out like a sore thumb. You’ll get used to it quick, though. What’s your name?”

“I’m Trixie.”

“I’m Violet,” the girl offered, “and that’s Shea.” She pointed to the girl next to Trixie. “She just got out of the SHU — that’s solitary — for yelling at a guard when she got a shot instead of Sasha. Dumb bitch.”

“You’d better watch it, Chachki,” Shea threatened, glaring out the window.

“Oh, she doesn’t mean it,” Violet quipped upon seeing Trixie’s eyes widen. “Hey, Trixie, I actually got a question for you.” Violet shoved the magazine she was reading into the backseat. Taking it, Trixie could see that it was an outdated version of vogue.

“I’m getting married when I get out, and I’m inviting this girl Laganja who was a total bitch to me in high school, and I want to show her up, even at the reception, make her look like shit compared to me, right? But I don’t know if I should go with something like spring ’16 Burberry inspired, which would work really well with my skin tone, or stick with classic Versace, because she really likes shit like that. You seem like you would know.”

“Um…” Trixie flipped through the magazine aimlessly. She didn’t know what about her invited that girl to ask for fashion advice, and she was staring at Trixie, readily waiting for an answer. Fortunately, she didn’t have to give her opinion, as Shea interrupted her focus.

“What makes you think your man is gonna still be waiting for you when you get out?” Shea spat, frowning at Violet. “Men are cunts. They’re all the same.”

“We’re in love,” Violet snapped, snatching her magazine back from Trixie as the CO brought another inmate out to the van. She had gauged ears and gave Trixie an unamused look as she was shoved into the seat behind her. The CO closed the van door, banging on it, and Violet took that as indication to start the van and drive them the short way to the main prison’s campus.

After Trixie got her ID, which contained a cruelly unflattering picture of her, she was sent to talk to Counselor M. Ruiz, to whom she had apparently been assigned.

“Wow, Trixie,” he said, looking up from her files after a few minutes of reading. “You’re really involved in a high profile case, here.”

“I know,” Trixie sighed. “I guess I deserve it, for carrying a purse full of drug money once, when I was like 20.”

Ruiz nodded, folding his hands and looking Trixie down sympathetically.

“I know this transition is hard for you, Trixie. You seem like a nice enough girl. Prison is hard, but you’ll be able to make it through,” he said. “If you don’t let people mess with you, then they won’t. You’ve got to put on a tough face. Especially with lesbians. Do you hear me, Trixie?”

Trixie nodded, uncertainly.

“You do not have to have lesbian sex.”

“Uh— I’m not planning on it, Counselor Ruiz. I’m not a lesbian. I have a fiancé. Can he come visit?”

“Good,” he replied, shifting the papers around on his desk. “If he’s on your visitation list, he’s cleared. I’ll make sure he can come this weekend.”

“Thank you,” Trixie said, sniffling a bit. “Really, thank you.”

“If you need anything, Trixie, I’ll be here.” He offered her a short smile before putting his glasses back on and returning to his work. Trixie took that as her cue to leave and stepped out into the hall, looking around briefly before catching sight of Violet and the two other girls who were on the van with her.

“Trixie!” Violet waved her over. “Count’s soon, so we have to hurry.” She began to lead the girls through the halls to their temporary dorm assignments before bumping into a redhead inmate.

“Oh Jinkx!” Violet said. “Trixie, this is Jinkx. She teaches yoga here. I don’t know how that happened. She’s very… uh… spiritual.” The redhead let out a cackle.

“I’m a Wiccan, but that doesn’t mean I can’t teach yoga too! I like to keep my body limber,” Jinkx said, flashing Trixie a toothy smile before turning and joining the crowd of inmates heading back to their dorms.

Violet continued to lead them through the prison halls before she was interrupted by an exclamation from the girl with the gauges.

“Oh, fuck,” she said, her eyes fixed on another woman who was marching straight up towards her. She scowled at her before slapping her across the face and stomping away.

“Shit,” Violet said, her eyebrows raised. “You know her?”

“Yeah,” the girl responded, holding her cheek. “My fuckin’ mom. Let’s keep going.”

“Sure,” Violet said. “We’re about at your room.” Violet rounded the corner and gestured to an open door. “Trixie, you’re in here too.”

Trixie hesitantly entered the room after the other girl, seeing four pairs of eyes staring back at her.

“Hey Alexis, this is Aja,” Violet said, giving gauges girl a gentle push towards one set of bunk beds.

“Yeah, whatever,” the woman on the bottom said, rolling her eyes and settling back into bed.

“And Alyssa, this is Trixie. Make sure she settles in here okay, please?” Violet asked, digging around in her pockets for a moment. She produced a toothbrush and held it out to Trixie.

“Thank you,” Trixie said, taking it from her and pocketing it. “They don’t give you toothbrushes here?”

“They sure don’t, sweet pea!” said the woman in another one of the bottom bunks. She stood and walked over to Trixie, throwing an arm around her shoulders. Violet smiled at her and left the room to show Shea to her bunk.

“Well, look at you!” the woman continued, looking down at Trixie. She had some of the largest hair Trixie had ever seen, and the eyeshadow job to match. “Trixie, huh? Aren’t you a beauty! About time we got someone else beautiful in here. My name is Alyssa Edwards. I’m a pageant girl; I won loads of ‘em all over the Deep South.”

“Yeah, until you got second place and killed the bitch who beat you,” chimed in the girl who had the bunk above Alyssa’s.

“I do not need your commentary right now, Adore Delano!” Alyssa huffed. “Ain’t like she’s any smarter, she got busted for carrying joints in her damn asshole.” Oh, so that was why they’d checked Trixie’s butt for drugs earlier.

“And that there is Miss Chad,” Alyssa said, pointing at the final woman lying in the lower bunk. “She’s got cancer.”

“Oh, but don’t get it wrong, honey, that’s not why I look like this,” Chad said, gesturing to her face. “This was botched plastic surgery. The baldness is the cancer.”

Trixie nodded, turning back to Alyssa with wide eyes. This was a lot to process.

“Um-“ Trixie began, but she was interrupted with several shouts of ‘count time!’ Chad started to get up slowly, and Adore hopped down from her bed and stood next to Trixie. Her hair was bleached at the ends, and she had heavy eyeliner on both her top and bottom lid. She looked Trixie up and down, smirking.

“You look fruity,” she said. “You’re a femme?”

Trixie blinked back at her. “What?”

“A femme lesbian,” Adore laughed. “Dummy.”

“I have a fiancé,” Trixie said indignantly as a guard came in and clicked six times, one for each of them. Another guard came in and did the same thing soon after.

“Suit yourself, bitch,” Adore said before practically sauntering out of the room. “It’s fucking dinnertime!”

The prison cafeteria gave Trixie bad vibes. She ended up in line by herself, looking around at the hundreds of incarcerated women around her. She knew that technically, she had committed a crime, but damn it if she felt totally out of place here. She fiddled with the ends of her blonde hair as the line moved slowly forward and she was served something that looked about the consistency of canned dog food. She turned to gaze out at the mass of tables, holding her tray close to her chest and feeling like she was back in high school.

“Hey, could you move?” asked a girl with a jet black pixie cut and a mop in her hand.

“Oh, sorry,” Trixie said, quickly scanning the room for a place to sit. She couldn’t sit. She didn’t know anyone. The mopping girl sighed, with Trixie noticing how velvety plush her lips looked. She wondered if you could get lip gloss in prison. The girl pointed over at the redhead, Jinkx, who was sitting by herself.

“She’s nice and white,” plush-lipped mop girl said. “Go sit there.”

“Uh, thanks,” Trixie said, making her way slowly over to Jinkx’s table. “Is it okay if I sit here?”

“Sure, witchy!” Jinkx said, flashing her another smile. From closer up, Trixie could see that some of her teeth were kind of wonky.

“How’re you holding up?” Jinkx asked, cocking her head to the side.

“Honestly, I’m really overwhelmed,” Trixie admitted, glancing around the room.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Jinkx said, extending a hand to pat one of Trixie’s. “It’s like I always say, though: ‘Water off a duck’s back.’” Trixie wasn’t sure what that meant, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it as another woman came up and sat next to Jinkx. She had a couple stray hairs sprouting up in-between her eyebrows, but not a lick of hair on her head.

“Ooh, Trixie, this is Sasha,” Jinkx said, introducing the other woman, who smiled at Trixie warmly. “She got arrested for chaining herself to a flagpole at a nuclear test site.”

“Do you have cancer as well?” Trixie asked. She thought that was a bit blunt, so she added, “Chad is my temporary roommate.”

“Actually, dear, I don’t,” Sasha said, spreading her napkin on her lap. “I shaved my head in protest of the lack of competent healthcare the prison system is providing for Miss Chad.”

“Oh,” said Trixie, looking down at her tray. She swore there was some kind of white mold growing on the surface of her pudding.

A tray plopped down loudly next to her, and Trixie looked up to see Adore grinning down at her.

“Femme fatale!” Adore laughed, throwing herself onto the bench next to Trixie. “You’re not thinking of banging out one of these two are you?”

“Adore,” Sasha chastised, shaking her head.

“Aren’t you just scandalous!” Jinkx exclaimed, sending a wink Adore’s way. Adore chuckled and started digging into her food.

It wasn’t long before another woman appeared at the table, and Trixie thought she was going to lose her mind if she had to learn any more names. This woman appeared to be more of Jinkx and Sasha’s age rather than Adore’s, but sat down next to Adore anyway, stroking her hair back delicately. She had bangs and an updo that Trixie had no idea how she managed to maintain, along with eye makeup that made her look rather calculating. She set her coffee down on the table, using her now free hand to dig around in her pocket, producing a yogurt cup and placing it on Adore’s tray. Adore looked at it and shot the woman a warm smile.

“Thanks, mom,” Adore grinned.

The woman reached back into her pocket and dug out two more yogurts, sliding them across the table to Jinkx and Sasha, who both took them gratefully.

“Bianca, you’re wonderful,” Sasha chimed, pocketing the gift.

“Hey, Bianca!” a voice called from across the cafeteria. A girl with sharp cheekbones and unruly blonde hair came sidling up, leaning on the edge of the table seductively. “Got one of those for me?”

Bianca huffed and stood, towering over the girl when she was at her full height.

“I don’t know, Willam, do you have something for me?”

“I’m working on it,” Willam frowned, sticking her bottom lip out in a pout. “C’mon!”

“Then fuck off out of here,” Bianca said. The girl rolled her eyes and headed back to her table as Bianca took a seat again.

“What a fucking cunt,” she continued, before looking Trixie dead in the eye. “And who are you?”

“This is Trixie-“ Adore started, nudging Trixie with her shoulder before Bianca cut her off.

“Did I ask you?”

“No,” Adore retorted quietly, frowning down at her tray.

“I’m Trixie Mattel,” Trixie offered quickly, a bit frightened by this new woman. “I just got here this morning.” Bianca raised an eyebrow before digging in her pockets and setting another yogurt cup in front of Trixie.

“Um… what do I have to do for this?” Trixie asked, afraid of the repercussions of accepting the yogurt. If this Bianca lady knew that other girl Willam and was still making her do something, Trixie didn’t even know what would be expected of her.

“It’s a gift, dumbass,” Bianca responded. “You’re new, and you look like a clown, which I appreciate.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” Trixie held the yogurt in her hand gently, knowing it would probably be the only edible thing in her entire dinner meal. “The food here is disgusting.”

Bianca paused in the middle of a sip of coffee, and Adore’s eyes widened. Sasha shook her head gently while Jinkx looked down at her food. Oh God, she did something wrong.

“What…?” Trixie asked hesitantly.

“Oh, miss thing thinks she’s something, huh?” Bianca said, standing again. She walked between Sasha and Jinkx, staring straight at Trixie.

“You don’t like the food, sweetie? Don’t worry about it. It won’t be a problem anymore,” Bianca said before turning and stalking away.

“By the way,” Adore offered, “Bianca runs the kitchen.”

“Shit,” Trixie said quietly. She put the yogurt in her pocket and stood, holding her tray.

“I’m gonna…” She turned around, looking lost. It was awful here. The bunks were awful and the food was awful and now everyone hated her. She just wanted to be back home with Ken and be able to get takeout from _Vinaigrette Salad Kitchen_ and not worry about all this anymore. Sasha nodded sympathetically at her.

“Go talk to RuPaul,” she said. Trixie nodded back before chucking her tray in the bin and rushing out of the cafeteria.

She only got lost once trying to find RuPaul Charles’ office, who she was told had some kind of authority in the prison, as he was a step down from the warden. The door was open when she got there, and Trixie rushed in.

“Mr. Charles?” He looked up at her from over his large, round glasses, a pile of paperwork in front of him.

“Mr. Charles, I’m Trixie Mattel. I’m new, I don’t have a number for the phones yet, and I really want- I _need_ to call my fiancé, please let me call him!” Trixie could feel the tears starting to prick behind her eyes as soon as she started the sentence, and by the end of it, they were freely steaming down her face.

Ru sighed and slid a phone across his desk.

“You’ve got two minutes,” he said wearily.

“Thank you. Thank you,” Trixie repeated as she punched Ken’s cell phone number into the phone hurriedly. It rung once before he picked up.

“Hello?”

“Oh my God, honey, Ken,” Trixie started.

“Babe!” Ken said. “How are you?”

“Ken, it’s awful,” Trixie cried. “This one girl is in here with her mom, and I insulted the food in front of the chef, and this one girl keeps asking if I’m a lesbian, and I can only sit with the white people in the cafeteria.“

She glanced over at RuPaul, who had his eyebrows raised as he continued to fill out paperwork.

“Whoa, babe, slow down,” Ken said. “A kid is in there with her mom?”

“No she’s just- they’re both adults, but- it’s not important,” Trixie managed to spit out. “That’s not important right now. Just- how are you? Pretend like we’re just at home, doing domestic stuff.” Trixie took a deep breath to calm herself down.

“What did you have for dinner?” she asked.

“I got takeout, from, uh, _Mark’s Feed Store_.”

“Oh,” Trixie said. “That sounds nice. Do you know what I had for dinner? Moldy pudding. And that was before I insulted Bianca.” She could feel the tears beginning to well up again.

“Oh my God,” she said.

“Finish up,” Ru barked, interrupting her train of thought.

“Honey, I have to go,” Trixie said, clutching the phone tightly with both hands. “I love you so much, okay? I love you.”

“I lov-“ Ken’s voice cut out.

“Oh my God, honey?” Trixie asked, before looking over and seeing Ru’s hand pressing down the receiver.

“Oh,” she said quietly, setting the phone down.

“Your head’s not here,” observed Ru, eyeing Trixie. “Get some sleep, it’ll help. Orientation’s at nine tomorrow.”

Trixie nodded, standing up and leaving Ru’s office slowly. She walked, dead-eyed down the hallway back to her bunk, sliding off her shoes and not even bothering to change as she climbed into her bed. She sniffled as the tears started back up again, trying to cry quietly into her pillow.

“Lord, we got a crier,” said the woman in the corner bunk, Alexis. Her words barely registered with Trixie as she sobbed herself to sleep.

“Trixie. Trixie! My word, child, get up!” Trixie squinted her eyes open to the sound of the southern drawl, sunlight streaming in through the windows. She thought she was back in her childhood home for a moment before the woman in front of her put an arm on her and started shaking her.

“Hey beauty, if you’re looking to actually shower and eat today, you better get your lil’ butt outta bed.” It was Alyssa, looking at her curiously.

“Wakey wakey!” she continued. “You got flip flops, hun?”

“Um,” said Trixie, rubbing her eyes, “no?”

Alyssa cackled. “Oooh, hun, that’s real bad news for you! The showers have got fungus. You’re gonna wanna put something on them feet.” She left the room, leaving Trixie to sit up and look around. Everyone else had left the room except Miss Chad, who had her eyes closed in the bunk beneath her.

Trixie hopped down and started rifling through her things. If the bathroom was in poor condition, they must have given her a pair of flip flops, right? She dug through her bag, letting out a groan when she came up short of her desired item.

“Use those,” Miss Chad said, a finger extended towards a pile of maxi pads on the windowsill.

“I’m not on my period,” Trixie said, looking back and forth between the woman and the pads. Chad groaned and turned over.

“For your feet, stupid.”

“Oh. Oh!” Trixie walked quickly to the windowsill, grabbing two of the pads. She opened one and compared it to the size of her foot, seeing it was about the same length.

“Thank you!” she chirped quickly before making her way to the bathrooms. There were a couple people in front of her, and she held her towel a bit nervously. Naked women were walking around everywhere — apparently women had no sense of decency in this place. When it was her turn to take the next free stall, she hung her towel over the curtain bar and entered the stall before taking off her clothes, chucking them onto the bench across from the showers.

Although the water pressure wasn’t the best, Trixie had to admit, it felt good to shower. She felt like she was getting some of the grime of this prison off of her and closed her eyes, tilting her head back to enjoy the hot water.

Suddenly, a burst of cold air hit her chest and stomach, and her eyes shot open to see a black girl pulling back her shower curtain.

“You almost done in here?” she inquired, frowning at Trixie. She gave her a look that made her turn off the water immediately, grabbing her towel and attempting to give herself some decency.

“Yeah!” she squeaked. “Yeah, I’m done.” She hopped out of the stall, making the other girl laugh.

“Damn, you sure got no backbone,” she said, grinning at Trixie now. Trixie pursed her lips. The other girl’s expression had almost changed completely, verging on almost friendly, and Trixie blushed for letting herself be so gullible, trying to cover her breasts as she shifted her towel around to wrap it around herself more appropriately.

“Ooh, girl, look at them titties!” the other girl said, swatting her towel away. “And you real curvy, too! This real, boo? You got some work done?”

“Um, thank you,” Trixie stammered, picking back up her towel and wrapping it tighter around herself. “No, this is, um, this is just my body.” She quickly grabbed her discarded clothes from earlier.

“You lying to me? Because my name is Nancy Drew, and Imma get to the bottom of the truth.”

“I’m not. I’ll- uh- see you later!” Trixie turned and quickly walked out of the bathroom, her maxi pad shower shoes squelching across the floor. She could hear the girl she just encountered start to sing in the shower, and she let out a breath, relieved to be out of that situation.

She quickly changed back into her prison clothes before anyone else could comment on her body, and followed the crowd of women into the prison cafeteria, where breakfast was being served. She found Alyssa at the back of the line, her hair all dolled up and large, and Trixie slipped behind her in line.

“Well hey there, miss thing!” Alyssa chirped, her eyebrows raising as she laid eyes on Trixie. “How was your shower? Your hair looks like it deflated!”

“Yeah, well, they wouldn’t let me bring my styling tools to prison,” Trixie said, eyeing the line as it moved forward quickly.

“What a shame,” said another woman who had gotten in line behind Trixie. She started to touch Trixie’s hair, causing her to freeze and glance up at her hesitantly. She was very tall.

“This your natural color?” the woman asked. Trixie nodded, looking at the woman for a reaction, but she seemed more focused on Trixie’s hair than on Trixie herself.

“It’s lovely,” the woman continued, finally dropping Trixie’s hair and putting her hands on her hips. “When your money gets in, come to my salon, and I’ll give you a nice updo, okay? There’s two salons in here now — that fucking bitch — but you make sure you come see Peppermint, okay?”

Trixie nodded and offered the woman a small smile before turning to face the glass that separated herself and the workers in the kitchen.

“Don’t worry, baby, this’ll all start to feel normal soon enough,” Alyssa said, taking her tray from the pixie cut plush-lipped woman. When the woman behind the counter laid eyes on her, she frowned.

“You Trixie?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Trixie responded quietly. The woman reached down under the counter and pulled out a tray.

“Bianca says she made that special for you,” she said. Trixie grabbed the tray hesitantly.

“Um… thanks.” She followed Alyssa to a table where Adore and Violet were chatting away about some girl Adore had apparently eaten out earlier this morning. Trixie looked down at the mass of aluminum foil on her plate, opening it hesitantly. She was greeted with the sight of what appeared to be a breakfast sandwich, with something sticking out the side of it. She pulled the top half of the sandwich off before dropping it in the middle of the table, gasping loudly.

“Oh my God, ew!” Violet yelled, before breaking into a laugh. “Who gave you a used tampon?!”

“She insulted the food in front of Bianca,” Adore explained before breaking into a cackle as well. Trixie stood, backing away from the bloody mess in front of her.

“Oh, you going to laundry, hun?” Alyssa asked. “Make sure they don’t give you any old shit with holes in it.”

“Better hurry, though, orientation starts in a few,” Violet added, still grinning.

Trixie’s head was spinning. The bloody tampon was staring back at her, egged on by the laughs from the three women sitting around her, and she couldn’t breathe.

“I, um, gotta go!” Trixie yelled, grabbing her tray and dumping it in the trash before rushing out of the cafeteria. She could hear the three girls laughing behind her as she ran through the prison, gasping for breath. She saw a door marked ‘exit’ and quickly burst through it as the edges of her vision began to blur. The cold outside air hit her face, and Trixie felt relieved for a moment before she ran full force into somebody’s back, knocking both her and the other woman to the ground. Trixie hit the floor on her right side, opening her eyes to see a cigarette fizzle out in a puddle of water in front of her. She heard a moan, and saw a blonde head of hair pushing herself up off the floor. The woman turned around and looked at Trixie, glowering. Shit.

“What the fuck, bitch?” the woman asked in a heavy Russian accent. She stood up until she towered over Trixie.

Trixie knew she wasn’t supposed to show weakness in front of the other inmates, but she couldn’t help dissolving into tears again. This woman was about to murder her.


	2. Bianca's Shade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for all your supportive comments! I appreciate you guys reading, and am sorry that it might take me a bit to get these chapters out, but they seem to get away from me in length.
> 
> I also know you guys hate my characterization of Trixie, but just as Piper is frightened when she first gets to prison, I imagined Trixie would feel the same, but we should be seeing more of her true colors soon.
> 
> as for my life, I just took my first Russian class last week (привет!) and I already feel like a high-class Russian whore. As you can see, I wrote out Katya's Russian with the Latin alphabet translation, because I feel like a lot of people aren't familiar with Cyrillic and it's more fun to be able to pronounce the words along with her.

“Oh, Jesus, fuck,” the girl said, her Russian accent immediately dropping.  
  
“Shit. Hey, no, shhh.” She bent down and reached out for Trixie’s arm, rubbing it slowly. Trixie’s head shot up to look at the woman, her eyes bloodshot.  
  
“It’s okay,” she comforted. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry. I saw your orange scrubs; thought I’d give you a scare. I didn’t mean for you to get upset.”  
  
Trixie rubbed her eyes, knowing what little effort she had put into her appearance this morning was already gone.  
  
“Me? Upset?” Trixie quipped, sniffling. “I don’t know what you mean.” The woman gave a small chuckle and plopped down next to Trixie on the floor.  
  
“I’m Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova, but you can just call me Katya. Who are you?”  
  
“Trixie Mattel,” Trixie said, beginning to regain some of her composure. “Sorry for running into you. Are you all right?”  
  
Katya shrugged. “I’m tough. You do owe me a cig, though.”  
  
“Sorry,” Trixie said, poking the butt of it with her finger. “Are cigarettes hard to get in here?”  
  
“You kidding me? They have to come in through an orifice. I traded that for two candy bars yesterday. You’re lucky you’re pretty, or I’d still be fucking pissed at you.” Trixie stared intently at the cigarette, now soggy in the puddle of water. She really was having the worst luck in here. No matter who she met, it seemed as if she just couldn’t make a good first impression.  
  
“Hey, blondie.” Katya snapped her fingers in front of Trixie’s face. “Where’d you go? I said I wasn’t pissed.”  
  
“Sorry. I, um, have to get to orientation.”  
  
“Oh, me too! We can be seat buddies!” Katya hopped onto her feet and offered Trixie a hand. She took it, frowning at Katya.  
  
“You’re new? But you’re in beige.”  
  
“I’m new to Tuckahoe, but not to prison. I got transferred here a couple days ago,” Katya said, slinging an arm around Trixie’s shoulder. “I murdered someone at my last prison.”  
  
Trixie stared straight ahead, realizing that in the position she was currently in, Katya could probably snap her neck in two seconds flat. “Oh.”  
  
Katya let go of her as a wheezing laugh erupted from her mouth, bracing herself on the wall next to the door.  
  
“Your face-! Oh, Trixie- I’m kidding! Trixie, don’t take yourself so seriously! I’m sorry. I’ll make a note to try to stop fucking with you. I thought you would have a good sense of humor.”  
  
“I usually do. This is just… a big adjustment for me.”  
  
“Yeah, no shit. You look like the princess of white suburbia. Don’t worry, though, cutie, we’ll break you of that soon enough.” Katya put her arm back around Trixie’s shoulders, more gently this time, as the two women headed inside.

* * *

 

“Bianca! Where the hell- Bianca, get your ass out here!” Beth’s voice boomed through the entire theater, back to where Bianca was working in a corner of the scene shop. She set the skirt she had been sewing down on the table with an audible sigh, rolling her eyes at Floyd, who was working on a set of stairs for their newest production. He shot Bianca a smile as she stood.  
  
“Bianca, Beth is looking for you!” Cassidy, the new intern, stuck her head into the room, looking panicked.  
  
“I have ears, girl,” Bianca quipped, shaking her head as she strutted past her to find Beth, the director. It may have been a weekday, but Bianca was dressed to impress, per usual, and she felt very tall and powerful as she walked to the stage in her tight-fitting satin dress, practically cinched at the waist. Her heels clicked loudly on the floor as she met Beth, who was facing several girls in a line.  
  
“You called?” Bianca said, turning to face the girls as well. She stared them down, causing some of them to squirm, with one girl swallowing noticeably.  
  
“We finally have our leads,” Beth said, pointing down the line of girls. “This is Stephanie, Dominique, Margo, and — our primadonna herself — Estrella.” The girl last in line had beautiful caramel skin, and shot Bianca a wink when she looked over at her. Bianca raised an eyebrow.  
  
“You’ll be doing period costumes for all of them, and I want Estrella’s to really be the works — hoop skirt, layers of lace — you feel me, Bianca?”  
  
“I think I can manage that,” Bianca replied, looking the girls up and down analytically.  
  
“Good,” Beth said, shooing them off. “Well, get the hell out of here, then. Get their measurements, and then get to work. I trust your vision.” Beth turned and headed backstage towards the green room, likely to get her next “coffee” bump. Bianca watched her go and then surveyed the girls, who were looking at her nervously.  
  
“Follow me, ladies,” she said, before strutting back to her workshop. She could hear their footsteps timidly behind her. She seemed to scare everyone who first met her, but Bianca figured it was better this way — they could either grow a pair and get over it, or get to know her well enough to determine she wasn’t really malicious.  
  
She entered the scene shop, causing Floyd to look up, nodding approvingly at the actresses. Bianca dragged over a block for the girls to stand on.  
  
“All right, who’s first? How about one of the white girls — which one are you, Margo?”  
  
“I’m Stephanie,” the girl said, her eyes narrowing, but she stood up on the platform. Bianca whipped out her measuring tape and started to write down all the key points — the bust, the waist, the hips…  
  
The sound of a power saw brought her out of her train of thought, and she looked over to where Floyd was sawing through a marked board.  
  
“Do you really have to do that right now?” she yelled.  
  
“What?” Floyd yelled back.  
  
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Bianca muttered, taking down the last measurement.   
  
“All right, whore, you’re done, get out of here,” she said loudly, patting the girl on the back. “Who’s next?” She whizzed through Dominique and Margo’s measurements, eager to be out of the loud room. Maybe one day, Beth would finally listen to her and rope off a bit of the backstage to be a costume shop, like Bianca had only requested every single day she’d worked here.  
  
She was measuring Estrella’s shoulder width when the saw turned off and Floyd cracked his back.  
  
“Hey, Bianca, it’s lunch break,” he said, dusting the wood scraps off his pants as he walked towards the door. “You coming? The whole set crew is gonna head out together; we could wait a minute if you wanted to join.”  
  
“Shit,” Bianca cursed, quietly. “This is gonna take more than a minute. Fuck you guys; just go. I don’t need to see you and Nick practically finger-banging under the table for an hour anyway.”  
  
“Suit yourself,” Floyd said, walking out as he finished, “We’re only going to Vernell’s Eatery anyway, and I know how much you got the hots for the manager.”  
  
“Suck my dick!” Bianca yelled after him, scoffing as she shifted the measuring tape to wrap around Estrella’s bicep. A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth: she did desperately want her own space, as all her costumes were scattered around the theater, but she would miss Floyd’s banter distracting her while she was trying to work.  
  
“So… why is this gonna take more than a minute?” Bianca looked up to see Estrella peering closely at her, her lashes long and heavy. She wore too much mascara, but Bianca was in no place to judge.  
  
“You finished with all the other girls really quick,” she continued. Bianca wrote down the measurement before it could slip her brain. Estrella’s voice was mezzo-smooth, and Bianca figured she probably had an amazing set of pipes.  
  
“You heard Beth,” Bianca said. “You’re getting all dolled up, so I need all your measurements.” Estrella gave a little hum and looked around the workroom before watching Bianca work. Bianca went about her work diligently, eager to get off the clock, and she was wrapping up with a measurement of Estrella’s thigh when she felt a finger come to rest on her cheek. She looked up at the actress.  
  
“Don’t touch me, you bitch.” She glared up at Estrella, who met her gaze, confidently, smirking back. She didn’t move her hand.  
  
“Why don’t you give me a smile, then,” Estrella said. Bianca frowned to prove her point.  
  
“What are you, the fat, part-time construction worker who yells at me on the corner of 97th and Madison?” Bianca asked. “I’m done anyway, get the hell out of here.”  
  
“Not until I see your smile,” Estrella said, hopping off the platform with a pout. “I know you have dimples, I saw them start to come out when you were talking to that guy. Lemme see.”  
  
“Did you tell Beth you were deaf before she hired you?” Bianca asked, gathering up the papers scattered across the table. Estrella put her hand on them, gently leaning onto the table.  
  
“Pleeeease?” she begged. Bianca huffed. This one was going to be a handful. She plastered on a shit-eating grin, gritting her teeth at Estrella.  
  
“Here, you happy? Good. Get out of here, cunt.” Bianca snatched back her papers.  
  
“A cunt you’re going to be working very closely with for the next four months,” Estrella responded, laughing as she left the room. Bianca sat down as soon as she left, leaning her head back against the wall. Good lord, Beth was trying to kill her.

* * *

Katya dropped her arm from Trixie’s shoulders as soon as they were back inside the prison, but Trixie was grateful that she had Katya to lead her back to the common area, where orientation was, because she never would have been able to get back here on her own. She had just been following the crowds around during meals; she really needed to get the hang of this place.  
  
Someone had set up eight chairs for the session, and Trixie recognized the two girls from the van among the girls already seated. The only available chairs were in different rows, and Trixie started to head to the back before Katya stopped her, shaking her head. She walked up to a woman seated in the first row, who had a very…well, unique face. Trixie could tell some of that face was fake.  
  
“Scram, bitch,” Katya threatened, the Russian accent coming back out. The woman’s filled lips turned down.  
  
“You really wanna do this to me right now,” she asked. Katya just shrugged, her hands on her hips.  
  
“Oh my God, I’ve had it,” the girl said, rolling her eyes and standing up. “Whatever, commie. I’ll remember your face.” She got up and took the empty chair in the back, and Katya happily plopped herself down in the now empty seat, beaming at Trixie and jerking her head to the chair on her left. Trixie sat down slowly, not knowing why Katya decided to create unnecessary conflict, but happy she now had a friend who would go as far as to make sure they could sit together. It was like in college, when she and Pearl were best buddies. That is, before Pearl fucked her over.  
  
Orientation itself was a huge drag. A CO played a stock video that looked like it had been made in the 70’s, and then talked about weapons and what to do if you felt sick, which was apparently nothing. RuPaul Charles came in to talk for a few minutes about processing, and then he was followed by a tall, busty woman, who gave him the side eye as she entered. She set her iced coffee down on the table behind her.  
  
“Executive Assistant to the Warden, Michelle Visage,” the woman said, looking at the inmates. When she looked at Trixie, she gave what appeared to be an unapproving stare.  
  
“Just Miss Visage is fine,” she continued. Trixie thought she had to be wearing the most expensive push-up bra money could buy. “If you have any issues regarding your needs as women, come visit my office, and I will handle them personally.” Michelle then picked up her coffee and headed towards the door.  
  
“Uh, actually, ma,” said gauges girl — Aja — “I do have a question-“  
  
“I’m only here as a formality today,” Michelle said as she walked out of the room, not giving Aja a second glance.  
  
“Man, and I thought I was the biggest bitch here,” Katya leaned over and said to Trixie, grabbing her wrist. “Hey, wanna get lunch?”  
  
“It’s not like we have much choice, do we?” Trixie and Katya stood up and began to head next door to the cafeteria, but on their way out, a CO grabbed Katya’s arm.  
  
“Are you… Zamod… Zamolochiv…you’re the Russian one?”  
  
“Nyet! Ya, russkiy?” Katya said, drawing out the vowels and rolling her “r”s to emphasize that she very much was Russian. Trixie stifled a laugh, which made the CO shoot her a look.  
  
“You’re getting your work assignment. Laundry. Follow me.” The CO turned and started to walk away.  
  
“Wait, what about lunch?” Katya asked, frowning. “I’m hungry.”  
  
“You can eat later.”   
  
Katya started to protest again but the CO grabbed her arm and dragged her away, leaving Trixie alone again. She mourned the loss of her only friend as she got in the lunch line. She decided that she definitely liked Katya. Everyone in this prison seemed a little eccentric, and Katya was no exception, but Katya was making an effort to make Trixie laugh, which made her feel a little more like she was at home.   
  
Trixie got to the front of the lunch line and reached out to take her tray from the pixie cut woman, who froze when she saw Trixie’s outstretched hand, narrowing her eyes.   
  
“Next,” she belted, handing the tray to the inmate behind Trixie, who jostled past her as she exited the lunch line.  
  
“What?” stuttered Trixie. Were they not going to let her eat?  
  
“No, you have to-“  
  
“Next!” pixie girl said, handing the tray again to the woman behind Trixie. Trixie moved to the end of the line and reached for the tongs in the salad bar, but the other cafeteria worker, a tall, goddess-like, chiseled woman, quickly grabbed them.   
  
“Come on, please,” Trixie begged, sure her face revealed how desperate she was to eat. The goddess woman looked at the pixie woman, who shook her head. Goddess woman turned back to Trixie, giving her a sorrowful look. Trixie looked behind her to see a tall, imposing Bianca in the kitchen, looking down her nose at Trixie. She gave a little smirk before heading into the back.  
  
Trixie, collecting herself, turned and started to walk out of the cafeteria before a CO stepped directly in her path.  
  
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, staring Trixie down.  
  
“They won’t let me eat,” Trixie said, not making eye contact.  
  
“Well, we don’t leave lunch until lunch is over,” the CO responded, shoving Trixie’s shoulder hard enough that she spun around the other direction, stumbling forward a bit.   
  
She looked up to see many eyes on her, including Aja with the gauges, who she had come very close to running into. Aja nodded at her before turning and walking to a table filled with Latina women, including the woman who had slapped her face the first day. Trixie watched as Aja set her tray down, pushing the shoulder of a girl who was sitting next to the woman who had slapped Aja previously. The girl, who was stunningly beautiful, shot Aja a nasty look before standing up.  
  
“Excuse me?” she said, crossing her arms. “Who are you?”  
  
“I’m Cynthia’s daughter,” Aja responded, pointing at the woman who had slapped her. “Who are you?”  
  
“Cynthia’s daughter,” the other girl responded, looking Aja up and down judgingly. “Apparently, her pretty daughter.” The other girls at the table laughed loudly, looking over at Aja as well.  
  
“Valentina, drop it,” the woman, Cynthia, said, standing and pushing in front of her other daughter to regard Aja. Cynthia made eye contact with Trixie, which made Trixie realize she was staring, and she quickly walked away, looking for a place in the cafeteria to sit.   
  
She looked at the tables of women chatting away, having made friends in this godforsaken place, and Trixie started to feel empty again. She made eye contact with a woman sitting by herself, who hesitated before smiling at her and gesturing to an empty seat. Trixie started to head over to sit with her before Violet swooped in, linking her arm with Trixie’s and dragging her away.  
  
“Oh no, honey, you don’t wanna sit with Black Nina, she’s psychotic or something. Come sit with us.”  
  
“Black Nina?” Trixie asked as she sat down across from Violet, at a table with Jinkx and Alyssa.  
  
“It keeps her straight from Puerto Rican Nina,” Violet explained, taking a bite of her cornbread. GOD, cornbread. Trixie felt her stomach rumble as she tore her eyes away from Violet’s mouth.  
  
“How you doin’, sweetie?” Alyssa asked, looking at her as if she understood Trixie’s pain. Except Alyssa didn’t understand, because she had a platter of food in front of her.  
  
“This is fine,” Trixie said with a sigh. “I mean, I always wanted to be a skinny legend.”  
  
“Keep this up and soon you’ll be as skinny as Violet,” Jinkx said, elbowing Violet in the side.  
  
“Oh stop,” Violet scoffed. “Though, I am 18 inches cinched, just saying.”  
  
“Hun, you really gotta make things right with Bianca,” Alyssa said, putting a hand on Trixie’s arm.  
  
“You know what? I’m just going to apologize to her!” Trixie said, shrugging. “We’re all human. We make mistakes, right?” The other three women nodded, Jinkx a bit more enthusiastically than the others.  
  
“I’m just going to tell her I’m sorry, after lunch service. She has to understand that, right?”  
  
As their group was dismissed for lunch, Trixie caught sight of Bianca’s updo making its way out of the cafeteria and followed it. She lost sight of the hair a couple times, but it eventually lead her to one of the dorms, and Trixie looked in a couple of nooks before finding the one that belonged to Bianca. She stood in what was supposed to be the doorway, unsure of how to start her apology.  
  
“Jesus, fuck!” Bianca jumped when she turned around and saw Trixie, her hand shooting to her chest.  
  
“Why the fuck are you sneaking around?” Bianca asked, folding her arms over her chest. “Following me to my dorm now? Gonna try shanking me? Doesn’t look like you got the arm strength for that.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Trixie said quickly, “I didn’t mean to startle you.”  
  
“You might think I look old, bitch, but you’re not gonna give me a heart attack yet,” Bianca said, sitting down on her bed. She swung her legs onto the bed with a slight grimace, putting her pillow under her right knee.  
  
“Now, tell me what you want so you can leave me the fuck alone.”  
  
“Oh, do you have joint pain?” Trixie observed, pointing at Bianca’s knee.  
  
“I’m not your damn grandma, I don’t have ‘joint pain,’” Bianca scoffed, shifting her leg. “I’ve just been on my feet all day making food for these ugly bitches, so maybe my knee hurts. Do you need something or not?”  
  
“Sorry,” Trixie said, taking her eyes off the knee to meet Bianca’s eyes very earnestly. “I just wanted to… apologize for what I said yesterday. It was rude and immature of me and I really- I really respect what you do here. I know I could never do your job, and you really seem passionate about it, and I respect that ethic too. I’m so sorry, Bianca.”  
  
“Sit down.” Bianca tilted her head and sighed. Trixie sat lightly on the edge of Bianca’s bed.  
  
“Look, Trixie. I’m not a total bitch. I know you’re sorry. It’s rough being new here — we all were new at some point, and you seem like a sweet enough girl. You really do. But I’ve been here long enough that I know how this all works, and I have a reputation to uphold. I can’t do shit with ‘I’m sorry.’”  
  
Trixie supposed she wouldn’t be eating after all. She nodded and stood, walking out of Bianca’s cubicle slowly, in a sort of a daze. She had really hoped that would work. She could hear Bianca shift her legs around behind her and curse quietly.  
  
Trixie started walking through the hallways, hoping she could find her way back to her dorm. She knew what the area around her room looked like, but she didn’t know how to get there from here. She hoped that she might run into someone she knew, but instead she found herself back in the multipurpose room, which had been cleared of the chairs from orientation.  
  
“Hey, what the fuck is this?” an inmate said, holding up what appeared to be an ice cream.  
  
“Oh, that’s mine, boo,” responded the girl from the showers this morning, standing up to walk over to the other girl. “It’s my King Cone, I’m saving it for later. Hand it over.”  
  
“What? No,” the other girl responded. Shower girl tried to grab it from her, and before Trixie knew it both the girls were rolling around on the floor fighting, and the ice cream was in pieces at her feet. The other inmates in the common room were trying to pull the two women apart, and by the time a CO got there to officially break up the fight, the girl who had discovered the ice cream had a handful of the shower girl’s hair in her hand.  
  
“Really, Carmen?” shower girl yelled. “She took my weave!”   
  
Trixie couldn’t help but stare at the situation. She probably should have left, but… yep, she’d just seen her first prison fight, and it was only her second day.  
  
“Hey,” came a voice low in her ear, causing her to gasp.  
  
“Katya?” Trixie said upon turning around. Katya broke into a grin.  
  
“Come with me,” she said, grabbing Trixie’s wrist and walking in the opposite direction so Trixie had no choice but to follow her. She brought Trixie to the bathroom, where one other girl was standing in front of a mirror, plucking her eyebrows. Katya pushed Trixie up against the sink, putting her hands on either side of Trixie’s hips so she couldn’t move.  
  
“Uh-“ Trixie started, but Katya was inhaling loudly through her teeth, her face dangerously close to Trixie’s.  
  
“Oh, fuck, babe,” Katya said, her voice coming out rough as she started to lower herself to the floor, “I’m so fucking wet for you right now; I’m gonna make you scream my name in a couple minutes.”  
  
The other girl in the bathroom quickly grabbed her things off the counter and exited the bathroom quickly as Katya stood up and pulled Trixie into the only stall with a door on it, locking it behind them.  
  
“K-Katya,” Trixie stammered, “I, um, I don’t know-“  
  
“Hey, no, shhh, it’s fine!” Katya chirped, seemingly back to her old self. “Sorry about that, I wasn’t planning on there being anyone else in here.” Trixie watched Katya carefully, her pulse racing.  
  
“So, um…” Trixie watched as Katya stuck a hand down her own pants. “Oh, God, Katya, what-“  
  
Katya’s hand emerged with something in a napkin, which she offered to Trixie.  
  
“I heard they aren’t letting you eat, right?” Katya asked, shaking her hand for emphasis. Trixie took the object hesitantly, unwrapping it. It was a piece of cornbread.  
  
“I stole this for you!” Katya said with a grin.  
  
“Oh my God, really?” Trixie asked, looking between the food and Katya.  
  
“Yep!” Katya said, hoisting herself up to sit on the tank of the toilet and plonking her boots down on the seat. “Dig in, there’s no one else in here.”  
  
“Oh my God, thank you so much,” Trixie managed to get out before shoving the cornbread in her mouth. She hadn’t had food in almost a day, and even though the bread hardly tasted like anything, it was so nice to have something in her mouth.  
  
“Mmmmm,” Trixie moaned around her bite of food, leaning her head back against the stall and savoring the sensation of chewing. Katya leaned forward, resting her face in her hands, and happily watched Trixie eat.

* * *

“Bianca, please,” Estrella begged. Her head was blocking the light on Bianca’s sewing machine, but Bianca sat hunched over anyways, determined to finish the garment she was working on before going home that evening.  
  
“Girl, I’m busy,” Bianca replied, shooting Estrella a quick glance before pulling out the fabric and examining the hem she’d just made. “They’re your cast-mates — go drink and have a fun time, you’re all young. It’s really not my place to go out with you kids.”  
  
“So you’re not coming?”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
“Okay, cool. So then I’m not going either.” Estrella hoisted herself up to sit on Bianca’s table, causing the whole thing to shake. Her long, tanned legs were crossed inches away from Bianca’s face.  
  
“Really, queen,” Bianca said, raising an eyebrow. “You’re skipping bonding with the rest of the cast so you can watch this old hag finish a dress and then go home to bed so I can get up at the ass-crack of dawn and come back to this theater?”  
  
“Well, you don’t have to go home to bed alone,” Estrella said softly, leaning onto the sewing machine and looking at Bianca with those damn doe eyes. Bianca could see Floyd shift over where he was making a box for the show — she could tell he was trying not to listen in, but couldn’t help it.  
  
Fuck. There really was supposed to be no fraternizing between the cast and crew, much less whatever Estrella was implying, but she was just making it so-  
  
Estrella looked over her shoulder, and upon seeing Floyd was facing the other direction, took it upon herself to slip down and sit on Bianca’s lap, biting her own lip challengingly. Bianca let out a shaky breath and reached around the actress to scribble the address to her small apartment on a scrap piece of paper. She pressed it into Estrella’s hand before pushing the girl off of her.  
  
“Go have fun with your friends,” she said. Estrella looked down at the paper and gave Bianca a wink before heading out of the room, the sound of her heels slowly fading away. As Bianca expected, Floyd came over a few moments later.  
  
“Bianca, you okay?” he asked.  
  
“Of course,” she replied, eyes focused again on her sewing. “You think I’m gonna let some twenty year old Broadway-hopeful scare me?”  
  
“I know, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t, y’know,” Floyd said, looking at the dress as well. “We’re not supposed to interact with the cast too much, and if anything happens, it might be bad for the union and all-“  
  
“Floyd, you heard me send her away to the party. Nothing’s happening. Okay?” Bianca offered him a close-lipped smile.  
  
“Yeah, I know,” he said, smiling in return. “If you do need something to do tonight, Nick and I are gonna be cracking open a nice bottle of rosé at our place.”  
  
“Thanks Floyd,” Bianca smiled. “I’ll think about it.”

* * *

Trixie stared through the glass into the visitation room, where Katya was sitting and talking to a woman with long red hair, who Katya had claimed was her aunt. Every so often, Katya would make eye contact with Trixie and smile, which kept her satiated as she impatiently waited for Ken to get let into the room so she could go visit with him. He had promised to come visit today, but as visiting hours drew closer and closer to closing, Trixie was beginning to lose hope.  
  
Then, suddenly he was there: with his beautiful head of blond hair and a pullover, a CO led him to sit down at a table. Trixie was quickly patted down before she was allowed into the visitation room.  
  
“Oh, honey,” she squealed, and Ken immediately jumped up and turned at the sound of her voice.  
  
“Babe,” he said quickly before Trixie was smashing her lips into his, pressing herself tightly into her fiancé. Everything felt so right — she was with Ken, breathing in his familiar smell with her arms aroung the man most important to her in the whole world. She allowed herself a moment of pretend before a CO told them to break it up, and Trixie and Ken separated, both taking their respective seats across the table.  
  
“How are you?” Ken asked. “You look all…cheekboney.”  
  
“I haven’t really eaten in a couple days,” Trixie said, her voice low. “I insulted the food in front of Bianca, and now she’s starving me out.”  
  
“Bianca?”  
  
“She runs the kitchen,” Trixie said, running a hand though her hair. “I tried to apologize for it, but I don’t think she cares, and I don’t know what to do.”  
  
“Hey, babe, it’s gonna be okay,” Ken said, reaching across the table to hold Trixie’s hands.  
  
“No touching,” a CO belted out, and he quickly retracted his hands to underneath the table.  
  
“She can’t just not feed you, can she?” Ken asked. “Have you talked to a guard about it?”  
  
“They don’t care,” Trixie said quietly. “No one cares about me here, except my one friend.” She pointed over to Katya.  
  
“That’s your friend?” Ken said. He turned to look at Katya and frowned. “She looks like she does heroin.”  
  
“Stop!” Trixie scolded, shushing him.  
  
Trixie leaned in closer before whispering, “She snuck me food. She’s really nice.”  
  
As timing would have in Trixie’s favor, Katya and her aunt decided that was a good time to have an altercation.  
  
“Poshyol na khuy!” Katya slammed her hands on the table, yelling loudly in Russian.  
  
Her aunt stood, yelling back, “Otvali!”  
  
“Suka!”  
  
“All right, break it up, inmate!!” A CO rushed over and grabbed Katya’s arm, twisting it behind her back. She hissed at him in response.  
  
“You’ve lost your visiting privileges,” he continued, dragging Katya out of the room.  
  
“Who’s bitch now?” Katya’s aunt called after her, grabbing her purse and stalking out of the room, muttering something in Russian. Ken raised an eyebrow across the table at Trixie.  
  
“Okay, well, that was just bad timing,” Trixie scoffed, eyeing the other women in the room. “I'm sorry you have to see me like this, honey.”  
  
“I don’t care. I’m just glad I get to see you,” Ken said, smiling at her. He jerked his head over to where Katya had been sitting. “Watch out for that one, though.”  
  
“You’re just mad I’m making friends,” Trixie snorted. “Is it hard watching me be so successful while all you’ve got now is your right hand and your industrial-sized bottle of Jergens?”  
  
“You’re really the worst, you know that, babe?”  
  
“That’s why I’m in prison,” Trixie said, grinning. “Oh my God, please tell me you’re not watching _Toddlers and Tiaras_ without me.”  
  
“I hate that show so much,” Ken responded. “I only ever watch it because you want to, and half the time, I’m not even watching. It’s child cruelty.”  
  
“Well, we’re going on a binge when I get out. Oh, did you send my commissary check? Earlier I used maxi pads as shoes for the shower because I couldn’t buy flip flops.” Ken made a face — he had never liked discussing feminine hygiene.  
  
“I sent it as soon as I dropped you off, babe.”  
  
A loud buzzer went off in the room, signaling the end of visitation hours. The other families and couples in the room got up and began to hug.  
  
“Is that really it?” Ken asked. “I was only in here for like two minutes.”  
  
“That’s what you get for being late,” Trixie said, standing. “Come on, bring it in.” She pulled Ken close to her and kissed him until most of the other families had left the room. She leaned her head on his chest, sighing.  
  
“Please tell me you’ll get Phi Phi to visit soon too,” she said. “I know she thinks prison is gross and dirty, but I miss her a lot, and I wish I had my best friend in here too.”  
  
“I’ll tell her you miss her,” Ken said, rubbing Trixie’s back gently. “I have to go now, babe, the guard is giving me a dirty look.”  
  
“Okay.” Trixie leaned up to kiss her fiancé one last time before stepping back and offering him a sad smile. He waved to her as he left out the door with the rest of the visitors.  
  
Trixie filed back into the prison, looking around at the stale, beige-colored walls. She kept feeling like she was getting back into snippets of her old life, before the fact that she was in a women’s prison grew on her again, like a rash. She decided to go check commissary to see if her check had been cashed, and ended up in line right in front of Adore.  
  
“Hey, pillow princess,” Adore said, leaning on the wall behind her. “So, I saw Katya dragging you to the bathrooms earlier. Was it good?”  
  
“Was what good?” Trixie asked, taking a step forward in the line.  
  
“The head! Does she give good head?” Adore asked. "I was thinking about trying to tap that."  
  
“What?! What- no! We didn’t- eugh.” Trixie shook her head, wondering if every encounter with Adore was going to be with Adore assuming she was a lesbian.  
  
“First of all, again, not a lesbian. Second of all, why would you even assume that happened?”  
  
“Well, I mean, Ginger did come rushing out of the bathroom because you guys were about to fuck, soooo…”  
  
“But we didn’t!”  
  
“No, of course you didn’t, babe,” Adore said with a wink. “I know lesbians when I see them — but don’t worry, I’ll keep it a secret. Look, it’s your turn.”  
  
Trixie stepped up to the gate and was greeted by an Asian woman with unclockable makeup skills.  
  
“Um, hi,” Trixie started, “I was wondering if I had any credit here yet? My fiancé sent in the check a couple days ago.”  
  
“Oh, sorry,” the girl replied, lisping a little, “It takes at least a week to process.” Trixie sighed, cursing quietly.  
  
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Adore asked. “You need something urgent? I can buy it for you, and you can return the favor later.”  
  
“Oh my God, you wouldn’t mind?” Trixie asked, her face lighting up.  
  
“Anything for a fellow lesbian,” Adore grinned. Trixie thought she would let it slide for now.  
  
“Uh… okay, can you get me some socks?” Adore repeated the order to the woman working commissary, who got a pair of socks and slipped it through the hole.  
  
“Coconut oil?” Trixie asked. This one was a bust, the woman behind the counter shook her head to Adore.  
  
“How about spices? Like, for cooking.” Adore shot her a look, but turned back to the woman.  
  
“Okay, Kim, you got any cooking spices?”  
  
“Uhm… we have some cinnamon, cayenne-“  
  
“Yes, cayenne!” Trixie shouted. “Oh, sorry.”  
  
“All right, I guess we’re going with that.”  
  
“Okay, weirdo, here’s your shit,” Adore said once she had finished at commissary, dumping the items into Trixie’s arms.  
  
“Thank you so much, Adore,” Trixie said, eyeing her items gratefully. “I really owe you one. I still need coconut oil, though. Do you have any idea where I can get that?”  
  
“Try Peppermint, maybe? She has all kinds of beauty shit in her salon.”  
  
Trixie somehow found her way to the salon knocked lightly on the door, even though it was open. Inside the salon was Peppermint, who was trying (and not really succeeding) at fixing shower girl’s hair, which Trixie had seen ripped out of her head earlier.  
  
“Hi,” Trixie said quietly.  
  
“Hi,” said Peppermint, looking back to focus on the girl’s hair.  
  
“I never really introduced myself. I’m Trixie.”  
  
“Oh, honey, we know,” Peppermint said, her comb getting stuck in a knot in the other girl’s hair.  
  
“Ow!”  
  
“Sorry, Shangie. You’re not looking to get your hair done, are you, Trixie? I doubt your money’s come in yet.”  
  
“No, it hasn’t. I actually heard that you might have something I need.”  
  
“Oh, really?” Peppermint asked, fluffing up the other girl’s hair. “And what is that?”  
  
“Coconut oil? I would just need a little bit.”  
  
“Mmm, yeah, I got that. But not for you, honey, I’m sorry. I can keep you fresh, but it ain’t for free.”  
  
“Please,” Trixie pleaded. “I’ll pay you back after my money comes in, I promise.”  
  
“I’m sorry, baby, but I’ve been screwed over too many times to do that again.”  
  
“Now, hold on just a minute,” said the girl in the chair, sitting up straighter. “Trixie Mattel, right?”  
  
Trixie nodded, wringing her hands as she faced the girl who had complemented her breasts earlier.  
  
“Shangela Laquifa Wadley,” the woman said, extending her hand, which Trixie shook. “I have a proposition for you. I’ll pay Peppermint so you can have your oil, but, in return, you give me some of that nice yellow hair to fill out where that bitch Carmen snatched mine.” Shangela patted the side of her head, which was currently bare.  
  
“What do you say?” she asked. Trixie froze, her hand going to her own head of hair. Trixie was very proud of her hair. Though it hadn’t looked so hot lately, what with her having to forfeit all her hair products before coming to prison, it was usually big and bouncy and wavy and long and voluminous, and Trixie loved the way it looked.  
  
“Oh, that could work,” Peppermint said, reaching out to stroke Trixie’s hair. “I told you before, you have beautiful hair, girl.”  
  
“How much of it would you need?” Trixie asked hesitantly, gripping the ends of her locks.  
  
“About maybe… oh, this much,” Peppermint said, her hand closing around a small section of Trixie’s hair. Trixie stared at herself in the mirror.  
  
“Fine,” she said, biting her lip. Shangela laughed and hopped out of the chair.  
  
“After you, princess!”

* * *

Twenty-something year olds were idiots, Bianca had decided. She didn’t think she had ever behaved this stupidly when she was drunk, not even when she was as young as they were. Estrella was at her apartment, halfway through a bottle of Smirnoff, and she had insisted on bringing Dominique and Margo, much to Bianca’s chagrin. Bianca had enough alcohol in her to feel warm inside and have enough confidence to have an arm around Estrella’s shoulders, but she definitely had not had as much as the three younger girls, the other two of whom were drunkenly slow dancing on the other side of her coffee table.  
  
“Hey, Bea,” Estrella whispered into Bianca’s neck, “How about we leave these two idiots here and head into your room?”  
  
“And trust these bitches with my sewing supplies? Yeah, good idea.”  
  
“You know,” said Dominique, her words slurring slightly, “you shouldn’t call people bitches. ’S not nice.”  
  
“Yeah!” chimed in Margo. “You’re the bitch, Bianca! And, you’re not nice!”  
  
“Not nice? You’re in my fucking apartment! I invited you over!”  
  
“No, you didn’t.” Dominique had stopped slow dancing and turned to face Bianca confrontationally, her hands on her hips. “Estrella had to invite us, because you’re a selfish bitch.”  
  
“All right,” said Bianca, untangling herself from Estrella and standing up, “I think it’s time for the two of you cunts to get the fuck out of my house.” Bianca knew it wasn't as big of a deal as it seemed, but the warm pit in her stomach was really starting to heat up.  
  
“Oh my God, Nicki, she’s totally coming for you,” slurred Margo, egging on her friend.  
  
“What? No! If I wanted to come for you, I would come to your room at night and cut your fuckin’ ballet slippers up! Because without those feet honey: no talent!” Bianca yelled, the volume level in the apartment rising.  
  
“What the fuck, you fucking cunt!” Dominique grabbed an empty bottle off the table and swung it at Bianca, stumbling forward a bit. Bianca stepped backwards, realizing that this girl was serious, and that, as the oldest person here, she should maybe try to de-escalate the situation.  
  
“Whoa, whoa, Dominique, stop!” shouted Estrella, now getting up from the couch as well. “There’s no need to get violent-“  
  
“No, you know what, Estrella? Yeah there is!” Dominique yelled back, smashing the bottom half of the bottle on the table. She pointed the shards at Bianca, who backed up into one of her tables, her hand closing around whatever she could find on it to defend herself.  
  
“Because I’m sick and tired of this bitter ass cunt talking shit all the time! That’s all she fucking does, and I’m tired of hearing it!”  
  
Dominique lunged at her, and Bianca stumbled backwards again, blocking Dominique's blow with her arm. She realized she had picked up her large scissors that came with her sewing kit. She was about to parry Dominique’s thrust when Dominque’s arm gave way, and Bianca’s hand swung to the right with a jolt. The side of her hand hit flesh as the tips of her scissors sunk into something and got stuck.  
  
Margo screamed loudly, and Bianca immediately let go of the scissors. The three women watched in horror as Estrella’s face turned white, and she slowly sat down on the couch. A thin stream of blood began to make its way down her neck and stain the collar of her shirt.  
  
“Estrella? Estrella!?!” Bianca wasn’t sure if she had screamed Estrella’s name, or if it was one of the other girls.  
  
Estrella’s hand came up to feel for the handle of the scissors, and as she pulled them out of her neck, a large gush of blood came with it, and didn’t stop.

* * *

“Bianca? Bianca!” Trixie had finally gotten the woman’s attention, snapping her out of whatever thought she had been in previously. Bianca was sitting at her desk, looking at papers, with her right leg propped up on her bed.  
  
“Oh, not you,” Bianca scoffed. “Come to say ‘sorry’ again?”  
  
“No, actually,” Trixie came in and sat on the edge of Bianca’s bed, “do you mind?”  
  
“Yes,” Bianca said without batting an eye, her focus still on her papers.  
  
“So, I grew up on a farm, and my dad had knee problems too after working in our fields all day, and he would always make these remedies to help out.” Trixie placed the items she had gotten on Bianca’s bed.  
  
“If you tie a few socks above and below the knee, it helps with cushioning,” she explained, “and I made this rub for you — it’s cayenne and coconut oil. Put it on once a day, or whenever it’s bothering you, and it should help with the pain.”  
  
Trixie gave a satisfied nod and left Bianca’s cubicle before the older woman could respond.  
  
Trixie sat across from Katya at breakfast the next day, not even bothering to get in line for a tray of food. Katya had mysteriously disappeared for the rest of the evening, and Trixie hadn’t seen her since she had been removed from the visitation room, but she had shown up this morning seeming like her normal self, and Trixie didn’t want to disturb her mood by asking what had happened.  
  
Violet came over to them with two trays, setting one down in front of Trixie.  
  
“What’s this?” Trixie asked, looking up at Violet with wide eyes.  
  
“Raven told me that Bianca wanted you to have it,” Violet said with a wide grin.  
  
“Oh my God.” Trixie looked down at the tray, and then up at Violet and Katya. “Oh my God!” Kayta reached across the table to give Trixie a high-five.  
  
“I don’t know what you did, but it worked!” Violet smiled, sitting down next to Trixie. Trixie didn’t even wait before stuffing her face with a stale waffle, enjoying the sensation of chewing again. She moaned loudly, causing both Violet and Katya to laugh.  
  
“Is it that good?” Katya asked. Trixie nodded quickly, putting a hand on her heart.  
  
She had done it. She had successfully made peace with Bianca without getting into a prison fight, and this was officially a new start for Trixie Mattel at Tuckahoe Penitentiary. She was going to be a good girl, make friends, and get out of here alive.  
  
The rest of the day passed in a happy blur, with Trixie enjoying all three meals. The other ladies had been happy for her too, with Alyssa even rewarding her for her successful effort with part of a candy bar.   
  
In the evening, she had followed the crowd of women to the common room, where they were showing a film. Apparently, you had to bring your own headphones, but as Trixie’s commissary money hadn’t come in yet, she was attempting to enjoy the film as a silent film, which wasn’t very entertaining.  
  
“Hey, sorry I’m late.” Katya’s voice came from her left as the blonde slid into the row next to her. “What’d I miss?”  
  
“I don’t really know,” Trixie admitted. “I can’t tell what’s going on. I think that dude is her son, but they could be dating.”  
  
“Well, let’s find out,” Katya said, sticking one earbud into her ear and offering the other to Trixie instinctively. Trixie took it, gratefully. Katya really was a good friend.  
  
Trixie was enjoying the movie, now with audio. She could deal with this. Three mediocre meals a day, and movie nights every Friday night. Prison could be okay.  
  
And then, Katya slid her hand into Trixie’s, giving it a squeeze as she rubbed her thumb over the back of Trixie’s hand. The hand that used to have an engagement ring on it. Oh, shit.


	3. Katya, The Lesbian

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I actually put a proper warning in the first set of notes: as this is based off of oitnb, there are going to be slurs against lgbt+ and other minority groups, so if this upsets you greatly, this may not be the fic for u, honey. This chapter in particular deals with a lot of hate against transgender people, as the chapter and episode are focused on Peppermint and her transition.
> 
> anywho, you know why I have the time to update this regularly for the next month? bc I have no friends at college this summer term! if u wanna be my lover (or friend idk) or if you wanna see my drag insta you can add me @tit.mouse or you can add me on tumblr @biancadelfellatio! you guys have been leaving such sweet feedback and I would love to chat with some of you guys (:
> 
> also, let me know what you think of the backstories in this fic. It's been weird, because in the actual show, we don't just focus on Trix/Piper's POV, so that's why the backstories are more prominent, and I wanted to give the characters some background but I don't know if it really fits in with the flow of the fic. Let me know if you loathe my backstories and I'll stop writing them. It'll make the chapters a lot shorter though but idk this whole thing is up in the air fr

“Ooh, yes, sis!” Aja hopped off of her bed and started shoving her things into her mesh bag. “I just got my dorm assignment!”  
  
“Well, aren’t you just bouncing around like a grasshopper, Miss Aja,” Alyssa said, sitting up in her bed to watch Aja bustle around the room. “Can’t wait to be rid of us?”  
  
“Oh, hell yeah,” Aja replied, folding up her blanket. “No shade, but y’all old people snore. I don’t.”  
  
“Young people don’t have any respect these days either,” chimed in Miss Chad, who hadn’t even spared Aja a glance. She was doing a crossword, looking deathly bored.  
  
Trixie sat up from where she’d been reading in her bed.  
  
“Wait, so how do room assignments work here?” she asked. “How do you know who you’ll be rooming with?”  
  
“I don’t, blanca, I just know it won’t be you,” Aja said, swinging her bag over her shoulder. “Later, bitches.” Trixie watched her leave before shifting her gaze to Alyssa, who had stood up and was beginning to stretch. Trixie had learned that Alyssa, along with being a pageant winner, had also been a dance instructor, and she had gotten accustomed to Alyssa’s routine of stretching and practicing her turns in the morning.  
  
“Are you worried about who you’ll be roomed with, Miss Trixie?” Alyssa asked, bending over to touch her toes. “I wouldn’t worry, hun. I’m sure they’ll place you in the suburbs with the other white people. Maybe they’ll put you with that cute lil’ Russian thing that you seem to be gettin’ along with. Ooh, she looks flexible — I bet she’d be good at acro.”  
  
“Oh, well,” Trixie said, laughing nervously and shifting her pillow behind her, “who knows?”  
  
“If you get roomed with Katya, you guys can just eat each others’ pussies the whole night.” Adore had been checked out for a while now, blasting music on her headphones, but apparently she had been listening enough to feel the need to add her opinion to the conversation.  
  
“Adore!” Alyssa scolded, stopping her stretching to slap Adore lightly on the leg. “You know I say I’ll never judge you for bein’ gay, baby, because only God can judge that, but don’t you be bringing all your vulgar language into this here room!”  
  
“Yeah, Alyssa’s right,” Trixie said, hopping down off her bed to grab her toiletries.  
  
“Geez, sorry,” Adore said, not sounding sorry at all. She popped one of her earbuds back in. “I didn’t realize Alyssa was like, your mom or something.”  
  
“Joke’s on you, because I never met my mom. She didn’t show up to my birth,” Trixie said before heading to the bathrooms. That obviously wasn’t true, but as she heard Adore’s cackle follow her out of the room, she was satisfied she actually got a joke in. She was starting to feel more like herself: even the routine of heading to the bathroom in the mornings to shower was getting familiar.  
  
The line for the showers was out the door, so Trixie started to push past people, toilet roll in her hand to indicate she just had to pee. An arm shot out to block her path, and Trixie looked over to the girl with the fake lips from orientation.  
  
“Bitch, don’t be cutting the line.”  
  
“I just have to pee,” Trixie explained. “Can I pee? Or should I just stand here and let it flow, like we’re in backswamp Wisconsin?”  
  
Someone pushed the girl’s arm out of the way, and Bianca strutted through, looking odd without her heavy eye-makeup on.  
  
“Go pee, kid,” she said, before continuing to walk past the women waiting for the showers. “Excuse me, excuse me; coming through!”  
  
Trixie smiled to herself, more than pleased that she’d made peace with Bianca. She was definitely a bad bitch, and it felt nice to be on her good side. Trixie rounded the corner, letting out a small “oh!” as she walked in on Peppermint using a stall without a door.  
  
“Oh wow, so sorry,” Trixie said, averting her eyes to the front.  
  
“You’re fine, sweetie,” Peppermint said, finishing up. “I paid a lot for this vagina, I don’t mind showing it off.” She flushed the toilet and left the stall. “All yours.”  
  
“It’s fine, I think I’ll just wait for the one with the door. I don’t usually show off my vagina — well, I mean, except to my uncle, but once they pegged him as a child molester the family reunions weren’t as interesting.”  
  
Peppermint laughed, twisting up her eyeliner pencil. “I’m glad to see you’re starting to find your footing. How you feeling, sweetie?”  
  
“I’m… okay,” Trixie said, thinking for a moment. “Verging on good, even. I’m eating, which is more than what I could say a couple days ago.”  
  
“Mmm, doesn’t that make such a difference?” Peppermint said, leaning in closer to the mirror. Her eyes shifted to look at Trixie’s shower shoes.”Your commissary money still hasn’t come in?”  
  
Trixie shook her head, feeling a bit self-conscious of her maxi-pad shower shoes in front of Peppermint, who was quite beautiful. She looked across to see Peppermint’s feet in a pair of shiny flip-flops.  
  
“Did you get those at commissary? They’re cute.”  
  
“No, I made them myself. Haute couture; commissary doesn’t carry my size.”  
  
“What is that, duct tape?”  
  
“Yep, I’m crafty like that. Metallics are in this season.” Peppermint pretended to model her shoes before turning back the sink and swiping on some mascara.  
  
“If you want to avoid the shower line, go at 5am or 5pm; that’s what I do,” Peppermint continued. “And don’t go for the generic shampoo when your commissary comes in — it may be cheaper, but the water already strips enough of your moisture out of your hair, and the generic shampoo won’t do you any favors. It’s worth it to go brand name.”  
  
“Why are you telling me all this?” Trixie asked, shifting from leg to leg. The person in the stall with the door was taking a while, and she did actually have to pee.  
  
“‘Cause I’m nice, and I’m always right,” Peppermint said, turning around to regard Trixie. “And, I feel bad for cutting off your hair. You’re looking kinda busted. As soon as your money comes in, though, come see me, Trixie, sweetie, and I’ll have you looking good as new.”  
  
“Thanks,” Trixie said earnestly, smiling at Peppermint.  
  
“There’s no point in being shy anymore, you’re home,” Peppermint smiled back, heading out the door. “Good to see you, sweetie.”  
  
Trixie looked at herself in the mirror that was across from the doorless stall. Peppermint was right, she did look “kinda busted.” The part of her hair that was short stuck out from her head in a little tuft, and she didn’t have money to buy herself any makeup yet, so her face was definitely not up to her usual standards. She had been trying to make herself eyeliner by mixing some of her leftover coconut oil with various dark powders she found until Adore had taken pity on her and let her borrow her eyeliner, clearly not thrilled about it.  
  
But Peppermint was right, she was home, and soon enough, she would look like she usually did and feel great about herself and be the best inmate she could be. Trixie stepped back into the stall, pulling down her pants to pee, and not caring if the girls in line for the shower saw her. She didn’t recognize any of them, and none of them seemed to care.  
  
Trixie looked back up into the mirror and let out an internal groan, seeing Katya bounce into the bathroom, heading to the sink. Trixie accidentally made eye contact with her in the mirror, and Katya turned around, smiling.  
  
“Trixie!” she said. “How are you?” Trixie pursed her lips. She was holding a roll of toilet paper in her hand, her vagina was out, and Katya was waiting for an answer.  
  
“Good!” she chirped, hoping the brief response would prompt Katya into doing whatever it was she came into the bathroom to do so Trixie could get up. Katya just continued smiling at her, though, apparently unphased by the fact that Trixie was half-naked. Katya really had no sense of shame.  
  
“So, hey,” Katya continued, “I think we get a couple hours of recreation today, and I was wondering if you play any sports or you like running and stuff. They have a track here, and someone told me that there’s usually a basketball game going on. You don’t really look like you play, but I thought I’d ask.”  
  
“Honey, the only time I’ve ever run was when I homeless man was chasing me with his dick out.” This got a laugh out of Katya, which made something ping in Trixie’s chest, whatever that was. “Also, do you mind?”  
  
“Mind what?” Katya asked, oblivious.  
  
Trixie looked down at her own vulva and then back up at Katya.  
  
“Oh, right!” Katya said, turning back around. “Sorry. I’ve seen so many naked women that I forgot that privacy is a thing.”  
  
Trixie flushed the toilet and then washed her hands, standing hip to hip with Katya as she gave herself a black smokey eye.  
  
“‘So many naked women?’ God, you must be one hell of a lesbian,” Trixie joked.  
  
“No!” Katya screeched, grinning at Trixie through the mirror. She had a full set of beautiful white teeth. “Prison, dummy! Though, you’re not wrong about the lesbian part.”  
  
Trixie saw Katya’s eyes soften and quickly broke eye contact with her. Shit, Katya probably thought she was leading her on. She shouldn’t have even brought up lesbians at all, it just sort of… came out.  
  
“Mmm. Well, anyway, I have to go be naked in the shower now,” Trixie said quickly, rounding the corner before Katya could respond and jumping into a stall. She wasn’t gonna get caught up in lesbian drama. She had let plenty of guys down gently before, and nothing was going to change this time because Katya wasn’t a guy. They were just going to be good friends, because Trixie Mattel wasn’t a lesbian, and that was fine.

* * *

 

Peppermint loved her heels. She loved the way they sounded clicking down the asphalt, she loved how they were stoned and so her, and she loved the way they made her hips move and made her feel like a woman. She didn’t love the fact that she was half a head taller than everyone, and that people would turn to look at the extremely tall woman, but she couldn’t be bothered. She knew she looked amazing, and she just felt so great in her heels.  
  
Peppermint was headed to her local supermarket to pick up some hot dogs — her ex-wife had given permission for their son, Speare, to visit Peppermint this weekend, and last she remembered, hot dogs were one of Speare’s favorite foods and she wanted to surprise him. Peppermint picked up a basket and put it on her arm like a purse before perusing the aisles of the grocery store. She stopped by the bread aisle to pick up buns before heading back to the refrigerated meat department. She was examining the different brands as she heard an ugly snicker behind her.  
  
She turned to find three men standing a couple feet behind her, watching her.  
  
“Can I help you?” Peppermint asked. She wished they would just leave — she wasn’t a confrontational person, and wasn’t in the mood to deal with strangers harassing her, which, unfortunately, was a common occurrence.  
  
“Funny, huh?” one of the men asked, grinning at her with a holey smile.  
  
“What’s funny, Rob?” one of his friends asked, egging on the first man.  
  
“This tranny’s tryna buy sausages, when he already got rid of a perfectly good one.” The three men broke into the same ugly laughter, and Peppermint indignantly picked up the first package she could find before turning to walk past them and to the checkout. As she walked past, the third man, who had greasy black hair, shifted so she bumped into his shoulder.  
  
Peppermint took a deep breath, smoothing her hair back and steadying herself, before walking quickly though the store and to the checkout. She was used to getting harassed, but it always shook her, and she could still feel the heat behind her cheeks as the clerk bagged her items. She tried to focus on the clicking of her heels as she headed back to her home, but the sound didn’t have the same effect anymore.

* * *

 

Trixie wasn’t an outdoor creature. It was rec time, and she had followed the group of women to the patio area. Katya had been right — there was a basketball court on the concrete, and a little bit away, a grassy area where a lot of women were relaxing. Other women were sitting at picnic tables under a small covered area, playing cards. Not seeing anyone she knew, Trixie had sat down next to the building, barely moving, but already sweating under the heat from the sun. She wondered where the other white people she had met were.  
  
She watched as a basketball game played itself out, only recognizing Shangela in the crowd of women, standing out because of the streaks of Trixie’s blonde hair in her own. Someone slid down to sit next to her, and Trixie smiled when she realize it was Katya, though she quickly pulled back.  
  
“Sorry,” Trixie explained, “my fat arm is so gross and hot and sticky right now that I really can’t be in contact with other people’s skin.”  
  
“You look miserable,” Katya said, looking her over.  
  
“Yeah, well, I am,” Trixie said. “It’s hot and I’m outside and I’m in prison.”  
  
“I don’t know about getting you out of prison, but we can solve your first two problems by heading inside, if you want,” Katya said with a shrug.  
  
“But it’s rec time, don’t we have to be out here?” Trixie asked, turning to look at Katya. She frowned, noticing how Katya’s skin wasn’t flushed, she didn’t have beads of sweat dripping down her forehead, and she looked very much like she had just stepped out of an air-conditioned room.  
  
“Wait a sec, where did you come from?” Trixie asked, the frown still set deep in her face. Katya giggled.  
  
“From inside. C’mon, princess, no one told you you had to be outside the whole time.” Katya stood and offered her hand to Trixie, who peeled her back off the wall and stood up.  
  
“You should have told me, you bitch,” Trixie huffed, following Katya back into the prison. The cool air hit her as she stepped through the door, and she immediately felt better.  
  
“But then I wouldn’t have gotten to see you all hot and flushed like this.” Katya turned around to look at Trixie, beaming, her hand still gripping onto Trixie’s. Trixie pulled it back and crossed her arms, pretending to sulk. She wasn’t really mad — well, maybe a little irked — but ever since the movie, she had noticed that Katya was a little physical with her. She knew Katya was just a physical person — she saw her joking around with Adore and some of the other girls and she was just a touchy person, but Trixie couldn’t help but feel like Katya was a little extra touchy-feely with her. She knew nothing would come of it — after all, Trixie was very heterosexual and Katya knew she was engaged to a man, but she couldn’t help but be very very aware now whenever Katya touched her.  
  
“What do you want to do, kotyonok? Last I checked, Adore was in Bianca’s bunk, Violet, Alyssa, and Sharon had started a game of-“  
  
“Oh! I know!” Katya yelled out, interrupting herself. Trixie stifled a laugh at how quickly the Russian got distracted.  
  
“I have something you might like!” Katya pointed at Trixie as she spoke before grabbing her arm and dragging her off behind her. Apparently, just asking Trixie to follow her was too difficult for Katya to do.  
  
Katya pulled her into a dorm section that she recognized as Bianca’s. She glanced into Bianca’s cubby as they walked by and saw Bianca’s eyes closed, head leaning back on Adore as Adore massaged Bianca’s shoulders. Adore caught sight of Katya dragging Trixie along and grinned, sticking her tongue out and flicking it up and down as she maintained eye contact with Trixie. Trixie barely had time to roll her eyes before Katya pulled her into a bunk, releasing her hand to go digging through her metal cabinet. Trixie sat down on the bed on the same side of the room, looking around.  
  
“You live here?” she asked.  
  
“Yep,” Katya said, her head deep in the cabinet. “They just moved me in here today.” Katya extracted herself and offered something to Trixie in the palm of her hand, smiling proudly.  
  
“Look at this!”  
  
Trixie peered at the item more closely. It was a tiny hand, about the size of the hand of a babydoll.  
  
“Uh- Trixie looked up at Katya. “What?” Katya collapsed on the bed beside Trixie, wheezing. Trixie picked up the hand from where it had fallen from Katya’s, smiling despite herself. This was so stupid, but the blonde’s laughter was contagious.  
  
“Katya, what the hell? Where did you get this?” Trixie examined it more closely.  
  
“Isn’t it great? I traded my headphones to Yara for it! I don’t know where she got it, but I had to have it.”  
  
Trixie stuck it on the end of her finger and held it out for Katya to shake, saying, “Nice to meet you.”  
  
Katya screeched before dissolving into laughter, gripping onto Trixie’s finger as she flailed about.  
  
“Oh my God!” she yelled before snatching it from Trixie and sticking it on her own finger, posing with it. She covered her mouth with the hand, pretending to be surprised, and then she twirled it around her hair, dissolving into laughter after each pose. Trixie couldn’t help but laugh as well with how absolutely dumb and ridiculous this was.  
  
“Would you two clowns shut the fuck up?” echoed Bianca’s voice around the room, loud and irritated. Katya let out one last giggle before she bit her lip, trying to laugh quietly.  
  
“You have to- you have to take this from me,” Katya said, chucking the hand at Trixie. “I can’t be trusted with it.”  
  
Trixie grabbed it and shoved it underneath her hair in the back of her head, feeling the fingers stick in her locks.  
  
“Out of sight, out of mind,” she said, cocking her head at Katya. Katya put her hand over her mouth, stifling a laugh.  
  
“Oh mama, I hope you can get that back out,” she giggled, her voice low. Trixie tried yanking it out and succeeded in making a big knot in the back of her head. She looked at Katya, her lips pursed.  
  
“What did I say?” said Katya, shaking her head. She scooted to the end to her bed and sat, cross-legged, patting her lap. “Give me your hair, barbie.”  
  
Trixie slowly lowered herself down into Katya’s lap, trying to come in contact with the least amount of Katya’s legs as possible. She stared across the tiny room at Katya’s bunkmate’s stuff, which included an obscene amount of body lotion and a picture on their wall of bees. Trixie frowned and looked away from the picture, which was starting to disturb her. She didn’t know who Katya had been assigned to bunk with, but Trixie didn’t think she’d like them.  
  
The feeling of Katya’s hands in her hair took Trixie away from the bee poster, which was nice. Katya was being surprisingly gentle. She soon removed the tiny plastic hand and held it in front of Trixie, who took it silently, not moving.  
  
“While I have you down here, can I braid your hair?” Katya asked quietly. Trixie shifted to look up at her.  
  
“As long as I can move so I don’t have to look at that bee poster, sure.” Katya grinned, reaching on her cabinet behind her to grab a couple hairties.  
  
“Just lie on your back; I can braid it like this,” Katya said, beginning to run her hands through Trixie’s hair to separate it. “You don’t like bees?”  
  
“I mean, I grew up in the middle of nowhere, so every time I went outside, it was just bees. Bees everywhere.”  
  
“Bees? In my vagina?” Katya said, unprompted. Trixie bit back a laugh.  
  
“What are you, the lovechild of the Candyman and the girl from Teeth?” Katya keeled over, wheezing quietly into Trixie’s shoulder. The force of Katya’s stifled laughter caused Trixie’s head to bounce up and down from where it was resting on Katya’s legs and prompted her to continue.  
  
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been having sex with a guy and he just opens his body and bees come out, and I’m really not into that. I’m just looking for a guy who’s emotionally available and not filled with bees, you know?”  
  
“Stop, stop,” Katya wheezed, managing to sit up again.  
  
“I’ll stop if you pull it together and actually finish braiding my hair,” Trixie quipped. Katya’s hands immediately started working Trixie’s hair again, but Trixie could see a smile lingering on her face.  
  
“You know,” Trixie said a few moments later, “I know you, but like, I don’t know a lot about you.” Katya glanced down to meet Trixie’s eyes before finishing up a tight braid.  
  
“What would you like to know, mama?” Katya asked.  
  
“I dunno, I guess, like- where’d you grow up? Why are you in here? What did you yell at your aunt so aggressively during visitation?” Trixie could see Katya’s face harden at the mention of her aunt, but the Russian tried to play it off with a laugh.  
  
“My aunt’s stupid. She hates me, and she feels the need to bring up why she does every time she comes to visit, so I basically told her to fuck off.”  
  
“Oh. Why does she hate you?” Trixie asked. Katya looked at her skeptically.  
  
“You really wanna know? I’ll have to tell you all about my childhood, which is a lot of baggage to hear from someone you’ve only known a couple days.”  
  
Trixie shrugged. “I don’t have anything better to do. I’ll return the favor and give you my baggage too after you’re done.” Katya tsked, raising her eyebrows.  
  
“Well, you asked for it, lapushka. I was born in Russia. My parents sent me to an all-girls boarding school that specialized in training gymnasts. The school itself was fine, but I’m gay, so sending me to a school where I was surrounded by hot young women 24/7 was just asking for something to happen. I tried to kill myself twice, and then I fucked someone. Can you guess who?”  
  
Trixie stared up at Katya as she continued to braid her hair, a bit more roughly than she had at the beginning. Trixie noticed Katya hadn’t made eye contact with her once she since had started telling her tale, and Trixie kept her mouth shut, guessing Katya’s question was more rhetorical.  
  
“I went straight for the big guns — fucked the head coach’s daughter. The head coach! I was crazy back then. So they branded me as The Lesbian, and claimed that the daughter only had sex with me because I was evil and seduced her, and my parents quickly shipped me off to Boston so I wouldn’t be imprisoned and executed, but — joke’s on them! — I’m still in jail and want to die!”  
  
Katya slipped the final elastic around Trixie’s braid and tugged on it roughly to tighten it. She smiled down bitterly at Trixie before slipping off the bed.  
  
“You’re all done, mama. If you’ll excuse me.” Trixie sat up and ran a hand down the braid, watching Katya’s hair bob as she quickly exited her dormitory.

* * *

 

What part of her didn’t look feminine? Peppermint stared herself down in the mirror, which she had been doing for hours ever since Speare had been picked up by Peppermint’s ex-wife a while ago. It had been nice to see him, and he had made an attempt to be congenial, but Peppermint could tell he hadn’t really wanted to come visit her. Every time she tried to make conversation with her son about how his life was going, he had shot her down, and he had made a snide comment to her while they were playing video games.  
  
“How’s baseball going?” Peppermint had asked, sipping on tea infused with primrose that was supposed to help balance her hormones. Speare had played in little league ever since he was old enough, and Peppermint used to go to all of his games. Once she started transitioning, however, she found it harder and harder to go. The kids didn’t seem to mind Speare’s dad becoming his mom, but the parents…  
  
“’S fine,” Speare mumbled, focused on shooting other Call of Duty players. “Father vs. Son game is coming up soon. Everyone else’s dads are coming.” Peppermint shifted uncomfortably.  
  
“Would you… like me to come?” Speare gave her a look.  
  
“You can’t. Don’t embarrass me.”  
  
Her son’s words echoed in her head, along with the words of the men who had harassed her at the supermarket. The look her ex-wife had given her when she came to pick up Speare was thrown in the mix as well. She was a woman. What about her couldn’t they look past?  
  
Peppermint shook her head, snapping herself out of her head. She was going to be the most beautiful woman they had seen. All of them. She would redo her wardrobe, buy herself some new hair, pay for actual breasts and ditch the cheap padding she was using. She had to finance this somehow.  
  
She threw on a miniskirt and a pair of heels, checking to make sure her makeup was okay before heading out. A club she used to frequent had an 18+ Saturday night, where she was sure to find a bunch of drunk, underage college students intoxicated and pushing up against each other. It would likely be crowded and hot enough that no one would notice their credit card going missing.

* * *

 

Even though she thought Katya had been coming onto her before, Trixie was a bit worried when she didn’t see her for the rest of the rec time. She had sat on Katya’s bed for a while, waiting for her to come back, before Trixie got up and wandered the prison looking for her. Lunch was called before she was able to locate Katya, and she found herself in line behind Shea and in front of Shangela. Shea was complaining loudly to the girl in front of her, who looked only mildly invested.  
  
“I’m trying not be angry about it, but my new bunkmate is so irritating. She has all these rules, not to mention she’s old as hell!”  
  
“You better be careful about what you say about Kennedy,” the other girl warned, revealing a soft Southern accent. “She’s no joke. It’ll get back to her.”  
  
“Yeah, and what’s she gonna do to me? I can take her anytime.”  
  
“Mmmm, Miss Chi Chi is preaching the truth!” Shangela called over Trixie’s shoulder, causing both the other girls to turn and look at her.  
  
“Word is she killed somebody, that’s why she’s been in here so long,” Shangela continued, raising an eyebrow at Shea.  
  
“I believe it too,” Chi Chi said, taking her lunch tray. “Someone told me she cut her last roommate, and that’s why she got sent down to max.”  
  
“Stop messing with me. You guys are dumb as shit,” Shea said, grabbing her tray and leaving the lunch line. Shangela and Chi Chi followed, leaving Trixie to stand by herself again. She really needed to come to the cafeteria with people so she could stop standing around like an idiot all the time. She spotted one girl sitting by herself who looked nice enough, so Trixie set her tray down on the table in front of her.  
  
“Hi, can I sit here?” The girl looked up, giving her a once over.  
  
“Your choice,” she said. Trixie didn’t really know how to respond, so she sat down slowly.  
  
“I’m Trixie.”  
  
“Okay.” Trixie stared at this other girl, taken aback by her hostility. She was absolutely gorgeous, and Trixie thought she looked sweet, but she was starting to think that she had been wrong about that judgment.  
  
“Um, I’m sorry-“  
  
“Thank you.” Trixie blinked. The girl hadn’t even let her finish her sentence.  
  
“I don’t know what I did to offend you, but do you not like me or something?”  
  
“And I don’t,” the girl said with a tight smile. “Are you happy? I don’t like you. So stop looking in my direction.”  
  
“Is she bothering you?” Katya, once again, as she somehow managed to do, materialized out of nowhere, sitting down next to Trixie with her lunch.  
  
“We’re just… chatting,” Trixie said hesitantly, trying to read the other girl. “She doesn’t seem to like me very much.”  
  
“You know, you shouldn’t play the victim,” the girl said, pushing her long hair back. “It doesn’t suit you. And you — lesbian bitch — should shut the fuck up when you don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
  
Katya let out a huff. “Wow, fuck you.”  
  
“Oh my God, why are you talking?” The girl across the table rolled her eyes.  
  
“Excuse me?” Katya shot back. “Why don’t you leave?”  
  
“You know, you might be pretty, but your insides are dark and nasty, and I don’t like you or your ugly-ass girlfriend. Fuck you both.”  
  
Trixie didn’t know how Katya managed to move that fast, but all of a sudden she was standing and had flung a handful of food at the girl across the table, who had also stood up in a huff.  
  
“Are you fucking kidding me!” the girl yelled before two COs ran over to separate the two.  
  
“You don’t know me, fucking pizda!!” Katya screamed, the other women in the cafeteria egging on the fight. Trixie had her hands over her mouth, watching the two women with wide eyes.  
  
“Why don’t we calm it down,” said the CO who had his hands on Katya. The other girl was already halfway out of the cafeteria doors, guided by the other CO. Katya was also escorted out of the cafeteria, glancing back at Trixie as she left.  
  
Trixie kept her head down and ate her lunch quickly. Katya was proving to be a lot of trouble, unfortunately, because Trixie really just wanted to get serving her time over with and get the hell out of here. She decided she was going to call Ken after she ate to ask about her upcoming visitation, and ended up at the phone next to a tiny white girl who was crying.  
  
“Oh noooo,” the girl moaned next to her, sniffling into the phone’s receiver. Trixie turned her back to the girl, trying to give her some privacy, but her moans still managed to make her way past the tight seal the phone made to her ear.  
  
“Hi, honey!” Trixie chirped when her fiancé finally picked up.  
  
“Babe! How are you holding up?”  
  
“I’m okay,” Trixie said, leaning back on the wall. “Someone defended me today by throwing their lunch, so it’s been… pretty exciting here! How are you?”  
  
“I’m good. Just went out to get some groceries, the usual.”  
  
“So, um, did you get Phi Phi to agree to come to visitation this week?”  
  
“Actually, about that,” Ken said, pausing a moment, “Phi Phi said she’d come, but I don’t think I can.”  
  
“Wait, what?” Trixie exclaimed, rather loudly. The crying girl shot her a teary look, wiping her eyes.  
  
“What do you mean you don’t think you can come?” Trixie asked.  
  
“One of your sisters is having a rough time with her boyfriend and asked me to come ‘mediate’ something.” Trixie groaned. Of course her family still managed to be an inconvenience, even when she was in prison.  
  
“Which one? Kelly? Chelsea? No — I bet it’s Stacie, isn’t it?” Trixie took Ken’s silence as an affirmative answer. “God, she’s so annoying! Even dad said her relationship wasn’t going to last. Why don’t you cancel?”  
  
“Trixie, this is your family. If you can’t be there for them, I should at least try to.”  
  
“It’s just Stacie,” Trixie moaned. “Please, honey.”  
  
“…Trixie. You’ll have Phi Phi.”  
  
“God, why do you have to be such a nice guy?” Trixie said. “I miss you. I miss sleeping with you.”  
  
“I miss you too, babe. I miss your smile and your cooking and your sweet ass and how it felt-“  
  
“Honey!” Trixie’s eyes were wide open now, glancing over at moaning girl to see if she heard anything, “What are you doing?”  
  
“Wait, is that not what we’re doing?” Ken asked. “You said you missed sleeping with me, I thought you wanted to have phone-“  
  
“No, I meant I missed sleeping next to you! The beds are small and cold here. That’s what I meant. God,” Trixie shook her head, sighing and lowering her voice. “I know you’re lonely too, but no phone sex. They record the calls. And some girl is sobbing next to me. It’s weird.”  
  
“Fine,” Ken sighed. “No phone sex. I meant what I said, though.”  
  
“I do have a nice ass,” Trixie said. “Go put away your groceries.”  
  
“Love you.”  
  
“I love you too. So much.”  
  
“Have fun with Phi Phi! You can have some ‘girl talk’ time.”  
  
“Mmhm, sure. Bye, honey.”  
  
“Bye, babe.”  
  
Phi Phi hated prison just as much as Trixie thought she would hate it. Trixie’s childhood friend spent the whole visit with her hand on her pregnant stomach, as if she thought someone was going to snatch her baby from out of her vagina.  
  
“Trix, it’s so dirty in here,” Phi Phi stage whispered across the visitation table, shooting a side eye at some of the other inmates who were also in visitation.  
  
“I know, Phi, just, like, focus on me, please?” Trixie said, beaming at her friend. “Look at this gorgeous mug.”  
  
“You look so rough,” Phi Phi responded, looking across at Trixie sadly. Phi Phi had never been one to mince words. Trixie sighed.  
  
“How are you?” Trixie asked, changing the subject. “How’s your baby coming along? Any important updates?”  
  
“Ugh, being pregnant sucks,” Phi Phi groaned, her head lolling backwards. “I wouldn’t have gotten pregnant if I knew it was going to be this shitty. I had to stop at a gas station on the drive up here because I had to pee so bad. A gas station, Trix! It was so gross.” Phi Phi rubbed her temple and Trixie nodded, feigning sympathy. They had become fast friends as kids, bonding over petty comments about the other kids in elementary school, despite coming from different backgrounds. Phi Phi was an only child, growing up in one of the nicest suburbs of Milwaukee, and Trixie had a bunch of siblings and a taste level that her parents’ income couldn’t quite support. Needless to say, Phi Phi ended a little more high-maintenance than Trixie was.  
  
“If it makes you feel better, I have to pee in a stall without a door on it,” Trixie offered.  
  
“It doesn’t, but thanks for trying,” Phi Phi said. “I can’t wait to get this thing out of me. I can hardly reach stuff anymore. Look!” Phi Phi reached out out for Trixie, her arms having to curve around her belly.  
  
“You’ll be done soon, honey. I’m so sorry I’m going to miss your labor.”  
  
“I’m never gonna forgive you for it, you bitch,” Phi Phi said, shooting a loving glance Trixie’s way. “I could really use you right now, too. The hubby decided he was going to go on a ‘self-discovery’ quest in Australia, so I don’t even know if he’ll be here for the birth of his own child.”  
  
“What? Why would he decide to do that right now?”  
  
“I don’t know; he’s crazy,” Phi Phi said.  
  
“Well, I’ll tell Ken to show up,” Trixie responded. “The baby needs an imposing male presence right away. That’s what the doctor’s for, but Ken will show up too and maybe faint a couple times.”  
  
“Thanks, Trix,” Phi Phi said, shifting so she could reach across the table and hold Trixie’s hand. “I’m glad you and your wimpy fiancé will be there for me, even though, y’know, you’ll be here.”

* * *

 

Peppermint’s ex-wife seemed impressed the next time she came to pick up Speare after he had visited. The pair were standing outside chatting while Speare went to pack up his things.  
  
“Wow,” Peppermint’s ex said. “Look at you.” Peppermint smiled coyly, doing a little turn. She felt so confident in her floor-length sundress, her hair teased up.  
  
“You look really good. Maybe even better than me,” her ex said, with a small laugh.  
  
“Thank you,” Peppermint said. “I’m really starting to feel comfortable like this, you know? I look in the mirror and, just… what I see is finally who I’m supposed to be.”  
  
A police car pulled up next to Peppermint’s apartment building, and two cops hopped out.  
  
“Peppermint Moore?” one of the cops said, approaching her.  
  
“Yes, that’s me,” Peppermint said, turning to face them. “Can I help you?”  
  
Her upper body was immediately slammed down onto the hood and windshield of her ex-wife’s car, causing the other woman to gasp. Peppermint struggled for a moment before she was handcuffed.  
  
“You’re under arrest for credit card fraud. You have the right to remain silent.”  
  
“Pep, is this true?” her ex-wife asked. Peppermint’s jaw was set as tears started to prick behind her eyes. The cops dragged her into the backseat of the cop car, leaving her ex-wife to repeatedly call her name behind her. Peppermint glanced at her apartment and saw her son standing in the doorway, watching her get taken away.

* * *

“Hi, Kim Chi, right?” Trixie was in line for her commissary, praying that she could finally buy something. The girl behind the gate nodded her head and continued to stare at her.  
  
“Trixie Mattel. Do you know if my money is in yet?” Kim bent down to check a stack of papers, coming back up blank faced.  
  
“Trixie? Good news!” she broke into an adorable smile, her lisp emerging as she said Trixie’s name. “Your money is here!”  
  
“Oh, thank God!” She could live like a human again! Trixie beamed back at Kim, setting about ordering a million and one things. She had to thank the people who had treated her nicely when she first got here. Kim ended up giving her a box to carry her things in, as she bought so many.  
  
“Thank you so much!” Trixie said, clutching her box happily. “By the way, I love your makeup! I don’t know how you manage to do that in here, but you look amazing.” Kim blushed and gave Trixie an appreciative look as she called for the next customer.  
  
Trixie almost skipped back to her room, running into Peppermint as she turned a corner.  
  
“Oh! Peppermint, sorry; I have something for you!” Trixie dug in her box, producing a roll of gold duct tape. “You said metallics are in, right? Maybe you can make some gold and silver bangles?” Peppermint laughed, taking the roll from Trixie.  
  
“I can’t believe you spent money on this,” she said, examining the tape more closely. “Thanks, sweet thing. You come by my salon soon, now.”  
  
Trixie nodded at her and headed to her room, greeted by the sight of Alyssa, Chad, and Adore.  
  
“Look who got commissary,” Adore proclaimed. Trixie set the box down, digging through it to find a teasing comb.  
  
“For you, Alyssa,” Trixie said, handing it to her. “I noticed you didn’t have one. I don’t know how you get your hair to look like that without teasing it; it’s what I always do.” Trixie held up an identical comb, pretending to tease her own hair with it.  
  
“Well, thank you, miss thing,” Alyssa said, heading to put it among her other various hair products.  
  
“What’d you get me?” Adore said, peering into the box.  
  
“And for Miss Chad… well, I didn’t know what you liked, so I got you a candy bar,” Trixie said, putting it on the cabinet next to her.  
  
“What for?” Chad demanded, looking between the candy and Trixie.  
  
“You were nice to me. You helped me with the shower shoes.” Chad reached for the candy and made a small noise, which Trixie took to be approval.  
  
“And for Adore-“ Trixie produced a pair of white socks. Adore took them, confused, before rolling her eyes.  
  
“Oh, I get it, because I bought you socks last week. You have some cayenne in there for me too?” Adore asked, unamused.  
  
“No, I also got you some makeup. I made Kim Chi show me all the lipsticks they had stocked, and these two will look best on you.” Trixie placed them into Adore’s hand, who smiled at her genuinely.  
  
“Party! Thank you, babe!” Adore leaned in to kiss Trixie on the cheek, and Trixie smiled, realizing she had actually made a couple of friends here already. Trixie grinned at Adore after the other girl pulled back, but Adore was focused on something behind Trixie.  
  
“Uh oh, bitch. Someone’s about to come and cut me for doing that,” Adore said, smirking. Trixie turned around to see Katya in the doorway. She had disappeared again after she had thrown her food at that mean girl, and Trixie headed back into her commissary box.  
  
“Katya!” Trixie chirped. “I have something for you!”  
  
“I do too,” Katya said.  
  
“If you’re going to fuck now, you can’t do it in here,” Adore said, hopping up on her bunk. “This is a sacred space.” Alyssa laughed, gesturing for them to shoo out of the room.  
  
“Oh- hallway,” Trixie said, grabbing the items she had gotten for Katya at the commissary. She leaned on the wall next to her door, Katya standing across from her and looking a little uncomfortable.  
  
“Trixie,” Katya started, “I want to tell you something-“  
  
“Wait, before you start, I wanna give you my gifts,” grinned Trixie. “I have a couple things — first, some foot lotion, because, as an amazing gymnast, you have to keep your feet in prime condition. Second, I have this rubber chicken — I don’t know why Kim had this, but I thought it was something you’d like. Last — well, this one is a stretch — but they had this big ring, which I think is supposed to be for hanging towels or something. It can fit around your wrist, I think. Even though we can’t be real wives, because I’m straight and engaged and whatever, I thought it was symbolic to give you a ring-looking object. I wanted to thank you for everything you’ve done for me these first couple days. I don’t know if I could have survived prison without a friend like you.”  
  
Trixie dumped the objects into Katya’s hands, noticing Katya tuck a piece of paper and what looked to be a dandelion into her pockets before extending her arms to take the items. She looked down at them.  
  
“Thank you, Trixie. This was really kind of you.”  
  
“Do you like the chicken? I thought it was so you!” Katya nodded, smiling. Her lips were pursed, and she seemed tense.  
  
“I can’t wait to put it to good use. I’m going to go drop these off before I head to my work shift, but I’ll see you later,” Katya said, walking out of the hall.  
  
“Oh, wait, didn’t you have something for me?” Trixie called after her, but Katya had already turned the corner.  
  
“Mattel,” a deep voice called. Trixie turned around to see a CO looking at her.  
  
“Get your stuff,” he continued. “You’re being assigned to B dorm.” Trixie nodded and walked back into her room, gathering her stuff quickly. She felt all 3 pairs of eyes in the room on her as she moved about.  
  
“What?” Trixie asked, ripping up her bedsheets.  
  
“Did he say ‘B dorm’?” Adore asked.  
  
“Yeah, why?” Trixie responded.  
  
“Oooh, sweet pea, that’s the ghetto,” Alyssa said, clicking her tongue. “Good luck down there, Miss Trixie, you’ll need it.”  
  
Trixie was apprehensive, following the CO down the halls to her new dorm. She felt out of place as soon as she stepped into the room: every other person living there was African-American. Trixie bit her lip as she walked to her new cube. It was awful the prison racially profiled inmates like this, but did they really have to put her here??  
  
Trixie peered inside the walls of her dorm to see a middle-aged woman reading a book. She looked up at Trixie. She looked practically regal, and Trixie swallowed.  
  
“Hi, I’m Trixie Mattel,” she said quietly. “I was just assigned here.”  
  
“Kennedy Davenport,” the woman responded. Oh, damn. This was the woman Shea was talking about earlier. The scary one. Who killed somebody. Something must have happened between the two of them. Maybe Kennedy killed Shea. Trixie snapped out of her train of thought when Kennedy said something she didn’t catch.  
  
“I’m sorry?” Trixie asked.  
  
“Open your ears, child,” Kennedy scolded. “I said that I have rules in this bunk. I keep it clean, and I make honor cube every week, and I still expect to win even with you here, so you best do your part.”  
  
Trixie nodded and took a step in to set down her stuff, but Kennedy tutted at her.  
  
“Shoes off before you enter the bunk,” she said. Trixie took off her shoes with some difficulty, trying to balance all of her items on one arm.  
  
“I saw you get into that food fight the other day in the cafeteria. I don’t care if you’re gay, but I won’t have you bringing any drama in here. Is that clear?”  
  
Trixie nodded again as Kennedy went back to her book. She set her stuff down on her bed with a sigh, pulling her bare feet up onto the bed to hug her knees as she looked around. She really couldn’t win.


End file.
